When a state is against net neutrality, pro super PACs, pro hobby lobby/religious tests in employment, pro book banning in libraries, but wants to regulate social networks because "political freedom", their motivations are a bit suspect.
jrm4 373 days ago [-]
No, but seriously, they're doing this stuff in such a sloppy way that I'd definitely be looking for opportunity, e.g. the wording of one of their anti-CRT things essentially said "no one can make someone else uncomfortable about race" and I'm like "word? I can work with that."
tialaramex 373 days ago [-]
The thing is, just because it seems as though if the nonsense rules were enforced impartially they'd look like fools doesn't help you because they'll be the ones deciding how the rules are to be enforced.
If you explain "literacy test" voting laws prior to the US Voting Rights Act without that sort of context people imagine well, you send one smart black teacher, they do a few lessons, next year every black person in the town can vote, while presumably many poor white folks can't right?
But that's not how it works, in practice the "test" is whether you're white or not. If you're white you "pass" and if you're black you "don't pass", and if you complain about this loudly enough well, maybe you have an unlucky "accident".
zrail 373 days ago [-]
> if you complain about this loudly enough well, maybe you have an unlucky "accident"
Lynchings are never this circumspect.
wahern 373 days ago [-]
In retrospect, no. But reality was never so clear cut, especially contemporaneously. Lynchings of whites wasn't uncommon. The so-called "last lynching in California" was of two white murder suspects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Hart#Lynching_of_Thurmo... The application of lynchings were, however, disproportionate, and this must have at least been apparent to anyone who cared to consider the question. According to Wikipedia, between 1883 and 1941, "3,265 were black, 1,082 were white." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States
Accounts of lynchings also emphasize the treatment of black bodies as evidence of disdain. But even lynchings of white victims often involved mutilation and the taking of "souvenirs", as in the aforementioned lynching. Again, no doubt this was disproportionate, but even the most obvious sorts of discrimination aren't as "black & white" as popular narratives would have you believe. (NB: I'm not challenging the idea or existence of disdain regarding black bodies.)
I think these finer distinctions matter because they're fundamental to understanding the concept of systemic racism--arguably, there really is no other kind but systemic racism. To sell the idea of systemic racism, we tend to shape historical narratives to better fit how people conceive of racism. But taking that license can be counter-productive as it then makes it easier to refute or justify claims of racism, or the very notion of racism, particularly for those so inclined.
aaronbrethorst 373 days ago [-]
Those numbers don't take into account the percentage of the total US population that was Black and white from 1883-1941. In 1880 and 1940, respectively, 13.1% and 9.8% of people in the United States were identified as Black. The Wikipedia article below only offers the white population number for 1940, but that is reported as being 88.4% of the US population.
Despite the wildly disproportionate population sizes, more than three times the number of Black people were lynched compared to white people.
> Despite the wildly disproportionate population sizes, more than three times the number of Black people were lynched compared to white people.
Now do per-capita murder rates today, I think you'll find the same disparity.
The fact is, lynching of whites and blacks (usually for murder) were inline with "likelihood to commit that crime" based on having virtually identical per-capita murder rates today. Lynchings occurred in the past primarily because the law didn't function effectively.
No one wants vigilante justice (then or now), but we shouldn't be too surprised that communities police themselves when the government can't (or won't).
qikInNdOutReply 373 days ago [-]
There are lynchings in large parts of the world, and yes the government is dysfunctional, but not as dysfunctional as a mob acting on relgious prejeducies. Take pakistani lynchings for halucinated sacrilege to the qroan or african lynchings. So comunity circulating word of mouth becomes "fact" and then murder.
Meaning the most crazy, shizophrenic person told tale in a comunity becomes the "law" base. Lynchings are a horror.
magicalist 373 days ago [-]
> Lynchings occurred in the past primarily because the law didn't function effectively.
Jesus Christ I thought this thread was bad but then we get to this post.
DuskStar 373 days ago [-]
It's trivially true though? If you had a functioning justice system, the lynchers would be arrested and it wouldn't happen again.
It's also true in more significant ways, in that lynchings happened because people felt that crimes (or "crimes") were not being appropriately dealt with.
magicalist 372 days ago [-]
> It's trivially true though? If you had a functioning justice system, the lynchers would be arrested and it wouldn't happen again.
That is explicitly not what the GGP argued. They were very clear, and it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest otherwise. You can make your own argument but don't misrepresent others'.
> It's also true in more significant ways, in that lynchings happened because people felt that crimes (or "crimes") were not being appropriately dealt with.
"I want to beat someone, hang them from a tree, and then have a picnic around their mutilated body" is not something that needs to be both-sides-ed as someone's personal beliefs on justice.
I don't know if this is the typical HN thing of "I know a few details, I can figure out the rest from first principles" but there's an incredibly large amount of historical evidence of people who very plainly stated their motivations that you need to reckon with before you can make claims like these. Like, it's not reasonable to claim the KKK was primarily an activist group primarily motivated by the need for criminal reform.
bryanrasmussen 373 days ago [-]
>It's also true in more significant ways, in that lynchings happened because people felt that crimes (or "crimes") were not being appropriately dealt with.
Given the way that lynchings seemed to function in some parts of the U.S based on documentary photographs and such that probably some people would like to make illegal, it could just as well be argued that lynchings happened because the country did not have effective mass entertainment.
foldr 373 days ago [-]
The point is that OP is ignoring the blindingly obvious element of racism involved in lynching of Black Americans in the Jim Crow South (and indeed elsewhere). The post is bordering on apologism for these crimes by painting them as merely a rational reaction to underpolicing. If there is a place for wildly revisionist takes on this part of America's history, I'd suggest that HN is probably not it.
Chris2048 373 days ago [-]
> the blindingly obvious element of racism involved in lynching
Except the context is the high number of white lynching's that also occurred.
foldr 373 days ago [-]
If someone wants to argue against the scholarly consensus regarding the role of racism in lynchings in America, I'm happy for them to do so if they do it properly. That is, if they take on the best existing scholarship on the subject and give references to support their arguments. The OP's comment simply asserts that the existing consensus is wrong. I see no reason to take such an assertion seriously, or even to debate it. In the absence of any real effort to engage with the historical facts and scholarship it's mere apologism.
Chris2048 372 days ago [-]
Including white lyching? "scholarly consensus" is that it was racism?
foldr 372 days ago [-]
>Including white lychings? "scholarly consensus" is that it was racism?
Actually yes, in many cases. 'White' in these stats often includes Jews, Italians and other groups who also suffered from discrimination based on their ethnicity. The category 'white' has not remained constant over the past 200 years. You can certainly find scholarly treatments of this point if you look on Google scholar.
Chris2048 372 days ago [-]
> You can certainly find scholarly treatments of this point if you look on Google scholar.
Posting a link rather than quoting the relevant parts make me think that's all you did, once I called you on it. Should you be held to the same high standard?:
> take on the best existing scholarship on the subject and give references to support their arguments
You essentially put the burden on me to figure out how this document supports your argument - that the majority of white lynching (in some unspecified time period) where racially motivated.
I've also found quite a few that argue white lynching were motivated by support for progressive racial causes, but yet to find concrete statistics/evidence supporting that conclusion either.
refurb 372 days ago [-]
What consensus? Im not even sure what your arguing is true or not true.
Those two seem unrelated? You can have lynching of blacks as a method of control while also having lynching being extrajudicial punishment for whites?
foldr 372 days ago [-]
I'm not sure how serious you're being at this point, but I'll try one more time. The original post clearly puts forward the hypothesis that lynching of black Americans was not driven by racism, and that lynching of 'whites' [*] and blacks occurred for the same underlying non-racially-related reason. The Wikipedia article states the generally accepted historical facts, which are incompatible with this hypothesis. Take e.g. the lynching of Emmett Till, and many other less famous instances along the same lines. It would be absurd to suggest that these events occurred due to a lack of adequate policing (unless you think that an adequate policing system is one that puts Black 14 year olds in jail for allegedly whistling at white women). That is why no-one who seriously studies the history of lynching makes this claim.
[*] As mentioned elsewhere in thread, it's not so simple to say who was or wasn't 'white' at various periods in America's history, and we shouldn't assume that lynchings of non-Black Americans were necessarily not motivated by racism or other neighboring prejudices.
jrm4 372 days ago [-]
Let me stop you right here.
Do you really believe that black and white lynchings were certainly recorded accurately? To say nothing of the proportions as someone said below.
You're providing nothing useful here. Typical softening of racism as many, for whatever reason, like to do. Cut it out.
amrangaye 372 days ago [-]
This sounds a LOT like “there’s always been slavery throughout human history - I’m not denying the transatlantic slave trade was brutal. But we need to put it into context [insert Wikipedia article talking about the history of slavery]”. You can’t “both sides” this with Wikipedia links or arguing you’re speaking from a logical / non-personal perspective.
jrm4 372 days ago [-]
Right, but I'm talking about today. Meaning that I have more faith that malicious (righteous, really) compliance with rules thing this can have good outcomes, especially in the "sunshine."
Eddy_Viscosity2 373 days ago [-]
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
> But in fact it’s the work of another Frank Wilhoit, this one not a professional scholar of American politics but a 63-year-old classical music composer in Ohio, who wrote the adage as part of a longer point in the comments section of the political science blog Crooked Timber [0].
I don't get the point of being divisive on that. That quote is literally just describing corruption, which is present in all governments, though especially those in decline. Ideology has literally 0 relevance there. The past 2 years have had countless examples of such from people all across the political spectrum, and all across the world for that matter.
"Rules for thee, but not for me."
r00fus 372 days ago [-]
Corruption exists, but at least one party isn't putting it into their platform. I'd rather a party that struggles with corruption than one that thinks corruption is the future.
lazyeye 373 days ago [-]
Agreed. You really have to have the ideological blinkers on not to see that this proposition applies equally to whoever has the power.
paxys 373 days ago [-]
You are assuming any such laws will be enforced fairly, which is very far from the case.
colinmhayes 373 days ago [-]
Right, but the enforcement is actually "no one can make anyone else uncomfortable about being white"
fny 373 days ago [-]
And here I am wondering what the fuck happened to freedom.
Both the right and left have become supremely prescriptive in their own ways.
I want stronger local government. I have no way of trusting any of these assholes at the federal and state level. Why do they get to set standards for schools, infrastructure funding, or social policy? We have grid lock in part because there are different opinions on what's best.
So be it. We'll all do what we want, and time will prove what works best. Then we can use the federal/state levels for their intended purpose: handling externalities and international affairs.
dc-programmer 373 days ago [-]
Reading NextDoor completely disabused me of any notion that smaller government is better. It seems like everyone involved in local politics is an absolute crank. You can see this clearly in New Hampshire were the goofy libertarians who moved from other states gang up to defund public schools.
At least with the Feds they are under a constant microscope. The most heinous corrupt shit in America almost always happens at the local level because they can get away with it
int_19h 372 days ago [-]
And yet I find that what triggers the worst attitudes on Nextdoor is any discussion related to national politics.
bongoman37 373 days ago [-]
Not just defund public schools, but legalize things like child porn and underage sex [1]. Purely local government is often shitty in the absence of any guardrail laws from a higher level. Small towns are filled with people who care for absolutely no one beyond their tiny group and can often have way more time on their hands than reasonable people who have work and family responsibilities and care about people around them.
Wow I didn’t realize that. I only got the sanitized version of the story from Ira Glass
hackerlight 373 days ago [-]
> I want stronger local government.
Please, no. I get the rationale. It's the local knowledge problem, combined with state/federal being more likely to be populists.
But local government irrecoverably sucks for systemic reasons that I've just started to notice.
With local governance there is no way to resolve dilemma like incentives that cause negative sum decision making, i.e. locally good but globally bad policies. For example, restrictive planning laws. Good locally, terrible globally. So terrible that it is the kind of thing that is a threat to the stability of society.
Another reason is that the competence of local governance is significantly lower than state/federal governance, who have budgets to hire actual intelligent experts. I don't know if you're interacted with local government officials. If you have, you will notice what I'm talking about.
A third reason is that corruption is worse in local governments. It flies under the radar because they're not under the microscope of journalists. There's no good mechanism to decorrupt them.
Good federal governance is the way forward.
int_19h 372 days ago [-]
I would argue that "good federal governance" is outright impossible in a country where, at any given point, ~half of the population will hate whatever that government does.
Now you can argue that it's not actually half, and so long as it's less than that, a functioning democracy would allow you to steamroll over them. However, once enough people in a democracy consider it illegitimate, it stops functioning really fast.
hackerlight 372 days ago [-]
You don't avoid this by reducing federal scope and giving it to local. Say you achieve that goal, and then a populist gets in anyway. What happens then? Obviously they increase the scope, as all populists have done once they achieved power. The way you avoid this altogether is by creating good material conditions for people. One way you create good material conditions is by removing corrupt, vampiric local governments that contribute the opposite. Local governments are creating the conditions for populism by causing negative sum policies to add up to global tragedy.
Also, goodness isn't a binary switch, and goodness needs to be compared with the alternative.
I'd add that reducing local government doesn't mean that federal government has to be large and bloated. I still want a lean federal government.
I can also never pin down exactly what advocates of larger local government actually want. What powers and capabilities, specifically, should be removed from federal and done by local?
int_19h 371 days ago [-]
The way you avoid this altogether is by having a decentralized structure of governance such that the compromise of one node doesn't bring the rest down. If you want some specific arrangement to criticize, let's start with this:
No. Just go attend a school board meeting, and even run for school board. If you think only half your local citizens are kooks, consider yourself lucky. When standards are left up to them you get things the Lost Cause myth taught in school for 75 years. County school boards have the ability to strip history books from content they simply don't want taught, because it's politically inconvenient knowledge. How else are people worshipping Robert E Lee rather than referring to him as a traitor who waged war on his country to preserve and expand slavery in perpetuity, and got more Americans murdered than any other bad guy in American history?
That's what local school boards gets you.
It's a nation, and students are nationals. There needs to be some national standards.
ryandrake 372 days ago [-]
Don't forget Good-ol-boy nepotism. I've lived in SmallTown America and it's not great when BillyBob, his brother, his kids, nieces and nephews all run the town government, because BillyBob owns the car dealership and everyone in the town is financially connected-to or dependent-on him. Local power is accountable to so few people. We need less local power, not more.
int_19h 372 days ago [-]
Those "local citizens" are not some kind of different species from Americans at large - they also vote in state and national elections. So what makes the governments produced by the latter better?
judge2020 373 days ago [-]
Stronger local government would be great if people actually had the agency to move to any state they'd like. Instead, moving can be extremely difficult and time-consuming, so people are more likely to restrict their job searches to their closest metro area or at least stay within the same state/region; this is especially the case with Florida (population 20MM) where getting from South Florida (population 6MM) to the next metro area, Atlanta, is an 8 hour drive with no traffic.
snovv_crash 373 days ago [-]
Local generally means county level. Something like maximum 1M people (exact number to be determined), and if it grows more than that it gets split.
webmobdev 373 days ago [-]
The Florida law says a social media platform "may not willfully deplatform a candidate for office" and imposes fines of up to $250,000 per day on social media companies that ban candidates for elected office. The law also says social platforms "may not apply or use post-prioritization or shadow banning algorithms for content and material posted by or about... a candidate," and may not "censor, deplatform, or shadow ban a journalistic enterprise based on the content of its publication or broadcast."
If this is what the law is actually about, what's wrong here here? Do you really want corporates to decide what political views you should have access to? Every country has laws against hate speech or slander / defamation - if a politician or journalist says something inappropriate on these platform, it is the law that should punish them (even if the punishment is as light as forcing them / the platform to delete their post). (Related topic - even the Indian Supreme Court is currently deliberating on clarifying and enforcing laws on hate speech against journalist / editors / media platforms who have been increasingly indulging in hate mongering - "Where Is Our Nation Headed?", Supreme Court Expresses Concern About Hate Speech In Media, Asks Why Centre Is Standing As "Mute Witness"? - https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/where-is-our-nation-heade... ).
IX-103 373 days ago [-]
Even if we ignore the debate about whether a private enterprise should be forced to pay for speech they do not want, the bill is bad law.
Who do they define as a candidate? If I'm running for student council would it apply to me? What requirements are there?
Similarly, who is a "journalist"? Anyone can declare they are one.
Finally, what constitutes post-prioritization? If I search for something, then ideally posts relevant to what I searched for would be prioritized in results, does this count as "shadow banning"? In any list there can only be one element that is first. Are the others "shadow banned"?
Now let's look at this and see if the circumstances justify the government seizing the right of the social media hosting company to determine what content they want to serve on their website.
- Does the company have a natural Monopoly due to rights given to them by the public (such as the right of way for cable/equipment installation enjoyed by other common carriers)? No. These companies enjoy no such special privileges.
- Is there a substantial cost for a competitor to enter the market? No. Software and server infrastructure are cheap compared to costs incurred to existing common carriers.
Then I do not see a justification for the government to rescind the rights of the social network operators in this way.
webmobdev 373 days ago [-]
> Now let's look at this and see if the circumstances justify the government seizing the right of the social media hosting company to determine what content they want to serve on their website.
If social media platforms want that right, like news media platforms, they have to hire real editors and agree to be liable for the information they publish and disseminate. Why should social media platforms get an exception to this but news media platform on print, TV or radio be bound by extra restrictions (liability)?
> Is there a substantial cost for a competitor to enter the market? No. Software and server infrastructure are cheap compared to costs incurred to existing common carriers.
Yes, there is the "network effect" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect ) which is a huge barrier for any new competitor to overcome. One way to remove this barrier and provide a more level playing field would be to create and enforce a standard that would foster connection and communication between all such social network platforms. Do you think the tech companies will allow this?
webmobdev 373 days ago [-]
> Who do they define as a candidate?
A political candidate is one who is a member of a political party and is running for a public office or has already been elected to such offices in the past. (Yes, I am discounting independent candidates as they are a minor aberration that, in my opinion, shouldn't be allowed in mature democracies). Whether the democratic system is presidential or parliamentary, political parties are one of the common institutions and base political units that are part of a democratic political system.
> If I'm running for student council would it apply to me?
No, since it is not a public office. This law is targeted to protect the free speech rights and political views of active politicians and elected representatives. For example, Twitter, under pressure from the current right-wing government of India deliberately tried to sabotage the social media outreach of an elected Member of Parliament and an opposition leader:
“I want to bring your attention to what I believe is Twitter’s unwitting complicity in curbing free and fair speech in India,” Mr. Gandhi wrote in the letter to the Twitter chief executive, Parag Agrawal. “I have been reliably, albeit discreetly, informed by people at Twitter India that they are under immense pressure by the government to silence my voice.”
The proposed laws can actually protect tech platforms from this kind of government pressure too, which should be welcomed by us.
> Similarly, who is a "journalist"? Anyone can declare they are one.
Just like shouting "I declare bankruptcy" doesn't activate bankruptcy laws in your favour, "declaring" yourself a journalist doesn't make you a journalist in most countries.
pseingatl 373 days ago [-]
We already know that anyone with a blog is a journalist.
specialist 373 days ago [-]
Any one who files to be a candidate is a candidate.
Any one who publishes their work, cites their sources, and signs their (real) name is a journalist.
I don't have the heart to respond to the rest of your objections.
ben_w 373 days ago [-]
> Any one who files to be a candidate is a candidate
OK, but this can then be misused for other causes — for example, in the UK there is a deposit that general election candidates have to pay, which IIRC was introduced because too many people kept filing to be candidates because that was a way to get out of a legal obligation (draft, I think).
I expect the same here. Is anyone illegible to file for candidacy? Is this exactly the same dividing line you want between the tweeters and the tweet-nots?
(I am amused by the idea of Trump social media site being forced to host the literal Communist Party USA candidates, but that's a different matter).
> Any one who publishes their work, cites their sources, and signs their (real) name is a journalist.
This definition is so broad as to include me. Thanks, I guess, but I don't think I warrant that status.
specialist 372 days ago [-]
Filing restrictions vary. Like no felons, under active investigation, lives within same jurisdiction.
We definitely have too many candidates. In practice, other filters, rightly or wrongly, cull the herd to only "serious candidates". Basically, ability to raise money and get endorsements. If you squint, they both kinda look like forms of social proof.
The political parties used to be the filter, but now they're impotent. For better or worse.
--
> I don't think I warrant that status.
Maybe not. But name some "journalists" in corporate media who have your credibility and authenticity.
By my definition, you are far more of a journalist than most talking heads and pundits can even claim to be. (Whereas anonymous coward me is not.)
A "professional journalist" also has the resources to do fact checking and corrections (errata).
Most of the news and analysis I consume today comes from podcasts, bloggers, and books.
That's not great.
Using Manufacturing Consent's thesis of media filters, because I don't have another model, it comes down to who is "in charge". Right now, our society's choices for mass news are corporate propaganda and corporate recommenders (algorithmic hate machines). Some people can afford to buy high quality bespoke news. Some are quirky or crazy enough (news junkies) to keep their own ledger (bozo list).
There are some exceptions. HN, metafilter, user groups (aka special interest groups) like some subreddits and ravelry.org, can also provide higher signal to noise over a longer time frame.
--
Thanks for humoring me and reading this far. I write to understand and it helps me to go thru the effort.
lotsofpulp 373 days ago [-]
>Do you really want corporates to decide what political views you should have access to?
No, which is why no one is stopping you from typing in a URL in your browser and visiting a website.
But a computer owner should be able to decide what goes on on their computer (even google or Facebook). The network that connects everyone is what should be regulated and forced to be “free” or “unrestricted”.
intimidated 373 days ago [-]
> But a computer owner should be able to decide what goes on on their computer (even google or Facebook).
How do you feel about the Civil Rights Act?
lotsofpulp 373 days ago [-]
If the intent is to say a business should not be able ban a protected class per the Civil
rights Act, my comment was intended to be interpreted within the context of businesses banning non protected classes.
The discussion would then be about if we legally protect members of tribe with certain gender, skin color, cultural affiliation, etc, why would we not protect a tribe of certain political views, that is an interesting question that I am not sure how to delineate.
keyme 373 days ago [-]
Right.. Are cloudflare CDN nodes "the network"? Or a computer?
Because they're "stopping me" already, as of late.
lotsofpulp 373 days ago [-]
Are the website owners asking Cloudflare to stop you?
fwip 373 days ago [-]
Wouldn't be surprised if they mean Cloudflare's decision to stop hosting a harassment and doxxing website (kiwi farms)
keyme 373 days ago [-]
That is what I mean. It starts with banning stormfront fascists but ends with banning the president. Keep thinking it's different.
fwip 370 days ago [-]
Donald Trump was not banned from Twitter until it was clear he would no longer be president.
SOTGO 373 days ago [-]
Unless there are more qualifiers, wouldn't any user be able to avoid being banned by simply running for any office? It's not particularly hard to run for office, it's only hard to be elected. I agree that discriminating on political views has nasty implications, but the wording of this law seems ripe for abuse.
gregmac 373 days ago [-]
Suddenly there's going to be a lot of spammers "running for office"...
shostack 373 days ago [-]
If someone very visible is using social media as the delivery mechanism for a stochastic terrorism attack, or to organize and trigger an insurrection should they be allowed access to the tools that enable these things?
webmobdev 373 days ago [-]
Good point - Terrorists are politicians too who believe they have the right to achieve their political goals using violence and anarchy. But most countries already have anti-terrorism and hate speech laws to deal with such kind of politicians who espouse a violent political ideology. As awareness has grown on how hate speech and violence is spreading through the use of internet, law makers are already debating and considering new laws to deal with this menace and trying to find the right balance between restricting such ideas vs balancing your right to express yourself.
UncleMeat 373 days ago [-]
Hate speech laws in the US are toothless. Richard Spencer could happily run for local office and then post on Twitter over and over that white people should go murder all black people and he would be protected from any policy action by this law.
munk-a 373 days ago [-]
At the same time - this one move might make Florida accidentally the most progressive state in America.
llanowarelves 373 days ago [-]
California did the reverse.
Prop 209 then Prop 16.
At first you were racist by being racist.
Then you were racist for not wanting to repeal anti-racist laws.
Just like how not having blind auditions for orchestras was racist (not hiring enough minorities). And now having blind auditions is racist (not hiring enough minorities).
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
The same Florida that passed a law specifically to punish Disney because they spoke out against the “Don’t Say Gay” law and passed the “Stop Woke” act?
munk-a 373 days ago [-]
I suppose I should've added some more overt humor markers on the above statement.
pyuser583 373 days ago [-]
Lack of humor markers is a downside of text communication.
andrew_ 373 days ago [-]
putting the erroneous media-assigned name of the bill in quotes doesn't make it any less erroneous. while the bill has flaws and is justly upsetting, we should not continue to propagate a falsehood.
> 3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur [for many students]
So I guess technically you can say the word, as long as you don’t explain what it means?
0xFEEDC0DE 373 days ago [-]
Why are you omitting the entire sentence?
"Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in."
autoexec 373 days ago [-]
That sounds perfectly reasonable as long as the bill goes on to explicitly define in law exactly what is and is not age/developmentally appropriate. I'm going to guess that it does not and that the true point of the law is to criminalize something poorly defined so that it can be used to selectively attack anyone who covers those subjects no matter how they do it.
Consultant32452 373 days ago [-]
pantalaimon 373 days ago [-]
Sexual education is not 'talking dirty' and 3rd graders are usually around 9 years old.
Consultant32452 372 days ago [-]
If you can't see the obvious difference between covering the district approved sex ed curriculum and trying to push the legal limits of what you are allowed to say to children before you go to prison, you should not be allowed around children.
magicalist 373 days ago [-]
> Laws like this are intentionally vague so we can put such a person under the prison where they belong without having to worry about them weaseling out of it.
This is freedom, apparently.
372 days ago [-]
Consultant32452 372 days ago [-]
You don't have any freedom with children who are legally compelled to be alone in a room with you.
wolfgang42 373 days ago [-]
I cut the second half for brevity: it seems that the bill does in fact prevent the use of the word under at least some circumstances, so I condensed the exceptions since they’re not relevant to addressing the claim that it doesn’t do so at all.
cronix 373 days ago [-]
It prevents talking about sexuality with children (up to 3rd grade), whether it's gay, straight, trans, furries, whatever. To say it's about one specific thing when it's about the entire subject is misrepresenting the bill.
tsimionescu 373 days ago [-]
Why should it be more acceptable, exactly? This is not even about sexual education, it is literally illegal to explain to those kids that sometimes a man and a woman love each other, and sometimes two men or two women do the same. Of course, the first part will never be enforced, but the second and third clearly will.
There is no age at which it is inappropriate to listen about these extremely basic facts of the world.
gnaritas99 373 days ago [-]
Consultant32452 373 days ago [-]
When I was in kindergarten I didn't even know my teachers had first names, much less spouses. A kindergartener is not your friend to share your life with. People have terrible boundaries. This is why public schooling must be destroyed.
michaelmrose 373 days ago [-]
When I was in kindergarten I knew people you saw in other contexts like school were people like your family who had names and families like your family. I have no idea how one could possibly reach that age and not know that. Extending that with the idea that people's families come in all sizes and combination with some having 2 men or two women seems entirely age appropriate.
In the broader context this topic would be dull as dishwater and boring as toilet training if a certain type didn't make it interesting if only as a measure of their obsession with sex and other people's mere existence transgressing on useless norms that they somehow assume are vital to our society.
Outside of your fantasies teachers aren't violating your kids boundaries by having a same sex partner or a last name nor yet by telling them some households have two mommies or two daddies. What you are actually concerned about is constant exposure to reality may lead your kid to believe that its normal and acceptable for a man to love another man or a woman another woman which is ok because a substantial minority are gay and it is indeed ok for them to love whom they love.
Instead you'd rather in your words "destroy public schooling" one of the most obvious wins of the modern era to avoid... your kid learning about... adam and steve.
Consultant32452 372 days ago [-]
Your approval is of no value and your disdain is of no concern. If it helps you to create a fantasy in your mind of what my concerns might be, you are free to do so.
michaelmrose 372 days ago [-]
Please do explain how at present kids are being wronged with specific examples and feel free to follow up with what you think public schooling ought to be replaced with for the tens of millions of kids whose parents cannot afford private school.
Consultant32452 372 days ago [-]
Government schools are literal prisons for children and the only place many people will ever encounter physical violence in their lifetimes. They should be replaced with nothing.
michaelmrose 371 days ago [-]
For practical purposes for a lot of kids this would mean no education, no socialization, less food, and running wild while any and all adults in the house have to work to pay rent. As someone who had a really shitty public school experience I still think this is absolutely an awful idea.
Consultant32452 371 days ago [-]
All you have going for you is momentum and that is changing rapidly. States are passing real school choice all the time. Real school choice means the money goes with the student no matter where the student goes. Home schooling is spreading like wildfire. Your schools are failing and they will die once enough people have escaped them. Your approval or disapproval is irrelevant, you've already lost.
michaelmrose 371 days ago [-]
Most people are ill equipped by intelligence, education, demeanor,and available time and to substitute for an entire building full of teachers. Schooling doesn't have to take place in the home but most parents are unsuited to the task by themselves.
The number of people home schooling went up during the pandemic but it is a single digit percentage not spreading like "wildfire". I expect home schooling to be sufficient for only a minority while a larger portion might well benefit from a partially or wholly online experience.
370 days ago [-]
Consultant32452 370 days ago [-]
We are not allies. We do not share a common culture or morality. Your arguments are irrelevant. The schools are being destroyed right before your eyes and you are powerless to stop it.
michaelmrose 370 days ago [-]
In your other post you referred to my kind and conquering me. Can you explain what that even means?
My kind is American or more broadly Westerner I suppose and I was not aware of any effort to conquer me.
tsimionescu 373 days ago [-]
I didn't say anything about the kindergarten teacher's spouse - the simple fact I was mentioning is something kids can obviously see on their own around them, and may well ask their teachers about.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
Well, when I was in kindergarten, I very much knew my teacher had a spouse, had twins, and she was pregnant at the time.
Would it have been inappropriate if she said her and her husband was having a baby? In todays society would it have been in appropriate if she said her and her wife? How do you think these same conservatives would have felt if little Johnny came home and mentioned to their parents that their teacher spoke about her wife?
UncleMeat 373 days ago [-]
And when I was in first grade my teacher got married, showed us pictures of the wedding, and changed her last name.
Consultant32452 372 days ago [-]
Teachers are service providers. They should have no deeper emotional bond with their students than the cashier at McDonald's has with their regular customers. Students are not friends. While the isolated story of your teacher sharing her wedding pictures is not a big ordeal, it shows an underlying problem of poor boundaries. We have a pervasive problem, at least in the US, of teacher with poor mental health and poor boundaries trying to be friends and pseudo-parents to their students.
UncleMeat 372 days ago [-]
I find this approach so sad. We've let the corporatization of everything build such huge walls between us as humans. Seeing every interaction as transactional and emotionless just feels like death to me.
tsimionescu 372 days ago [-]
Exactly - and teachers specifically have always been exactly formative figures in your youth.
At least in my country, what the GP is saying is almost the precise opposite of how the pupil-teacher relationship is conceptualized. Indeed, people often bemoan teachers who just think they're providing a service, instead of taking their responsibility as mentors seriously.
Consultant32452 372 days ago [-]
Demoralizing public school teachers and making them feel like death sounds like a win to me. The best possible outcome is they all quit and the public schools shut down. Until then, squeeze them, deny them any concept of free speech, let them know they are not to be trusted. These are government agents who have laws compelling parents to put their children in their presence. Public schools are literal prisons for children.
munk-a 372 days ago [-]
So are you advocating for religious schools?
Just to be clear - an informed electorate is sort of key for American Democracy so openly arguing against any form of education is a pretty clear argument against some really basic tenants of America.
371 days ago [-]
jonwithoutanh 372 days ago [-]
You've got to be the most unhinged person I've ever seen write on these forums. Congratulations.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
So if “public school should be destroyed” what has the alternative?
hedora 373 days ago [-]
Also, since talking about gender identity is also disallowed, I guess the little kids will just use whatever bathrooms they want?
DiggyJohnson 373 days ago [-]
How do you reason that whatsoever? Proper bathroom conduct in K-3 has nothing to do with sexual or gender discourse.
hedora 371 days ago [-]
Are you claiming boys and girls are the same gender?
dillondoyle 373 days ago [-]
There are multiple problems with this, the biggest being defining 'appropriate.'
and by their definition that somehow topics around queer people & gender can be inappropriate; this is not sex education and no, nurses are not handing out hormones to pre-teens.
Many of these laws specifically enable people to sue teachers, governments, officials, women who had an abortion, etc.
That enables conservative & religious fanatics to have the last say and impose their moral worldviews onto the rest of us.
The fact that gay people exist is not 'appropriate' in many of their minds. Which is gross and sad. And therefore these laws give the vocal minority the power to force the rest of us back into the closet.
munk-a 373 days ago [-]
I guess it's more accurate to say it's the "only say gay in the context of being happy" bill? You can say the word - but it can't be about sexual orientation.
bavell 373 days ago [-]
It says "classroom instruction", so wouldn't it also be okay if it was just the teacher and student in a one-on-one discussion? Since that wouldn't be instructing a class.
DangitBobby 373 days ago [-]
I'm gonna guess that wouldn't go you the teacher's way if someone wanted to call them on it.
tsimionescu 373 days ago [-]
I'm sure that would easily be categorized as grooming.
jimmygrapes 373 days ago [-]
RobotToaster 373 days ago [-]
While I'm sure Florida's motivation was entirely reactionary, the fact that disney has self proclaimed "leftists" defending a literal company town shows how great their propaganda is.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
We could say the same about any small town local government in the Bible Belt. Not to mention all of the people running for office who said the election was stolen or Florida that literally passed a law called “the Stop Woke Act” that forbids companies from teaching DI&E. Do you want the government to control the propaganda?
viridian 372 days ago [-]
> We could say the same about any small town local government in the Bible Belt.
This isn't remotely true. Your rural local government -
a) generally has to serve the interests of its constituents, ie the fuckup mayor or do nothing member of the county commissioners board will eventually be called out, shamed in public, and lose reelection.
b) unlike Disney, does not move in lock step chasing quarterly profit - which is a very good thing, as it allows for long term cooperative efforts, like bringing a sanitation system to a small town of 800 people.
c) Are by-and-large the most useful people when it comes to pushing back against encroachment by companies who would prefer a company town. Your county commissioner, county seat mayor, etc, almost always have interests that run counter to the largest factory in the area, which is a blessing. That's not to say corruption doesn't happen, but most people are honest, and try to help the folks they represent as best they can.
Disney is far closer to the factories that try to bully, cajole, and coerce their way to a better bottom line, than it is the elected body of a rural area.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
> generally has to serve the interests of its constituents, ie the fuckup mayor or do nothing member of the county commissioners board will eventually be called out, shamed in public, and lose reelection.
You mean the same local government where I grew up that within my still living parents lifetime enforced Jim Crow laws?
Or do you mean the local government where I live now that specifically said that “religious institutions” can be put up in residential areas but are twisting in all sorts of contortions trying to keep a Hindu temple out?
Or could it be the same state governments that are banning abortion left and right even though it goes against the wishes of their constituents?
Maybe it’s the same local government that condones police stopping minorities far more than non minorities because they “look suspicious”?
On the other hand the residence of Orange County Florida are definitely not in favor of Desantis forcing them (soon us) to take over control of Disney.
I know this not just because of what I heard on the news. Orange County will soon be our legal residence and where we spend the winter (the rest of the time traveling). I thought if nothing else, you could count on conservatives to be good for business and lower taxes. The stunt that the Florida governor did is good for nothing but his own ego.
refurb 372 days ago [-]
Yup. Normally the left is like “corporations aren’t people!” and “corporations should have less power, not more!”.
Then Florida tells Disney to watch its step and the left come out in defense of a massive corporation - “why won’t you leave poor Disney Corp alone!!”
Really amazing to see.
anon291 373 days ago [-]
They punished Disney by not granting them self governing status.
In my world, corporations being subject to the government is the Hallmark of progressivism.
But no one's actually paying attention to the actual actions, just their own view of the motivation
sircastor 373 days ago [-]
The Disney properties were already self-governing. The Florida legislature revoked that in political retaliation, and passed the cost on to nearby counties.
pclmulqdq 373 days ago [-]
As well as the potential revenue, which is immense. The city around Disney could introduce a small sales tax or raise property taxes and their anticipated shortfall would likely be fixed.
This isn't the surrounding city, this is a group of "concerned citizens" in the surrounding city - which is a big difference. The citizens of that city will likely be hurt by this, since it may cause a drop in tourist revenue and employment from Disney.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
Yes I’m sure other people in the city really want to take on Disney’s debt and want to take responsibility for zoning, police, fire, etc for Disney?
pclmulqdq 372 days ago [-]
The "concerned citizens" likely don't want Disney being adversely affected because it affects their business. Their reasoning has nothing to do with the debt or the responsibility for zoning, etc. The debt is how they are arguing that the government has the same interest as them (and in particular, that there is something illicit going on). By ignoring the potential benefits and pointing out the potential harms, they are trying to get what they want. There would be a huge difference if the city itself were suing, which would indicate that there is actually a problem with the economics of this.
If you've ever interacted with local municipal governments in the US, you would know that most municipal government employees would love to take responsibility for the zoning, police, fire, and tax collection at Disney. They would squeeze it for all they can - and they probably will. The concerned citizens (and Disney, who is likely funding their legal case) do not want this squeezing to take place.
Make no mistake, that town is only operating at a loss because Disney's accountants are writing its books. They are shifting income to the corporation and losses to the city, so they can take advantage of favorable financing terms available on muni bonds for those losses. If someone adversarial to Disney were to take over the town, the revenue/cost situation would be very different since the two would no longer be working together to shift profits and losses around. We are about to see how different it will be.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
Can you point to any article where the local government is salivating over wanting to take over Disney? How does it possibly help the surrounding city?
There is a huge movement in the metro Atlanta area to either break off from the larger city or to incorporate county areas so they can have more local control. There is no movement to take over larger responsibilities by the taxpayers.
pclmulqdq 372 days ago [-]
Most people don't "salivate" publicly. However, they don't seem to mind, and there is no plan to raise taxes on the residents in connection:
It helps because Disney in Orlando produces something like $20 billion per year, and owns something like $10-100 billion of property and equipment. All of that is now taxable. It's easy to see how this helps a city: A 1% sales tax would net $200 million, and a property tax would also be in the 8 figures.
Police, fire, and other essential services would cost nowhere near this much. Even servicing the debt on $1 billion of bonds would be nowhere near this much.
In terms of local politicians, this helps them because someone with $20 billion in revenue will be happy to pay you a $500k bribe (sorry, donation to your re-election fund) to give them favorable rules.
I don't know much about the Atlanta metro area, but there have been several cases in the past that I have heard of where rich areas try to break away from larger cities. The cities generally don't want this to happen because these districts are profit centers (this is a reverse of the Disney situation, where a potential profit center would be incorporated into a city). Desires for "local control" are usually about money.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
The only mention of it not raising taxes for residence came from DeSantis without anything to back it up.
This isn’t something I’m just hearing about from the national news. I bought a second home/investment property in Orange County that will become my legal residence once my wife and I start doing the digital nomad thing later this year.
People locally do not want this. No Republican or Democratic governor has ever complained about Disney’s special tax district until DeSantis brought it up specifically because Disney spoke up. DeSantis is not interested in “protecting free speech”.
Does this sound like anything but retribution:
“You’re a corporation based in Burbank, California, and you’re going to martial your economic might to attack the parents of my state? We view that as a provocation, and we’re going to fight back against that,” DeSantis said during an event at a Hialeah Gardens charter school.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
They had been “self governing” for decades. The city that now has to take on billions of Disney’s debt is suing Florida. No one wanted the responsibility of “governing” and zoning requirements for Disney. Not the local government and traditional the state didn’t. It was clearly done to punish them.
jasonlotito 373 days ago [-]
The issue isn't them punishing Disney (I mean, Fla residents do for the fact that they would take on debt for doing so, but whatever).
The issue is their motive. Motive is critical.
parkingrift 373 days ago [-]
klyrs 373 days ago [-]
But kindergarten classes talk about families. And many families have zero, one or two moms; zero, one or two dads. I'm one of two moms and other kids started asking questions about that when our kid was in kindergarten. The Florida law is meant to make kids like mine feel othered and isolated. It isn't about protecting innocence, it's about punishing deviance.
parkingrift 373 days ago [-]
No one is prohibited from having those discussions in an age appropriate manner.
klyrs 372 days ago [-]
The "fun" of a vaguely-written law is that there isn't actually a prescription for what an "age-appropriate manner" is. And according to the verbal statements of a lot of the people pushing for these laws, any mention of sexuality is age inappropriate. This sets up a chilling effect where teachers do not have the liberty to teach effectively because they're concerned about blowback: even if they do everything right, a child can mention what happened into class to a parent, which can result in a mis-interpretation being reported to school administration, which comes down on the teacher.
You’ve noted one thing the bill does. It also does several other things that aren’t limited to kindergarten through 2nd grade.
kadoban 373 days ago [-]
> The media-dubbed “don’t say gay” bill forbids kindergarten to second grade teachers from discussing sexual orientation or sexual identity. Oh, the humanity.
And if that's _all_ it said you'd be exactly right. What's the rest of the text?
nradov 373 days ago [-]
You can find the text of Florida House Bill 1557 here.
I've read it. It says more than the k-2nd grader bit. The rest is ambiguous bullshit designed to be selectively enforced against lgbtq or just silence anyone by fear.
parkingrift 373 days ago [-]
Don’t talk about sexual topics in a manner that is not age appropriate?
kadoban 372 days ago [-]
What does "not age appropriate" mean? Who gets to pick? Are they likely to pick largely based on if the person talking is gay?
tsimionescu 373 days ago [-]
Yes, oh the humanity. You're speaking as if the purpose of the bill is prohibiting teachers from explaining the best lube to use for anal sex, when in fact the purpose it to prohibit teachers from discussing the simple fact that some families have two dads or two moms (technically, the bill also prohibits teachers from discussing the fact that some families have one dad and one mom, but that is obviously never going to be enforced).
hcurtiss 373 days ago [-]
Maybe you can point me to where it says that.
tsimionescu 373 days ago [-]
Here, in paragraph 3 of the law itself[0]:
> Classroom instruction by school personnel or thirdparties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or [...]
The common interpretation is that telling children that some like boys or girls like girls and some like boys is "instruction on sexual orientation".
No, that is your interpretation, and it’s ridiculous. That language does not speak to mentioning two dads. And will never be enforced that way
e_i_pi_2 367 days ago [-]
I think you may be underestimating how litigious the US law structure is, especially when it's used to push some culture war thing
cycomanic 373 days ago [-]
> 3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur ...
So technically you can't talk about a man loving a woman or a man loving a man, practically nobody is going to enforce the first case and only the second case will be enforced.
thatnerdyguy 373 days ago [-]
And if their teacher is gay and is asked about who they are married to? Or if one of the students have gay parents, can they draw a picture of them? Etc...
0xFEEDC0DE 373 days ago [-]
Yes they can as long as it's age appropriate. "A school district may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students."....next
munk-a 373 days ago [-]
Which is the gigantic loophole - the bill isn't limited to primary grade levels. A parent suing U of F about their child being exposed to information about "sexual orientation" is perfectly allowed within the letter of that law. It says "primary grade levels" and then throws in a completely unlimited "age-appropriate" clause that allows it to apply to any person at any school receiving state funding.
Whenever these bills use squishy language like "age-appropriate" it's to provide an easy out for politicians at the time while causing a chilling effect over all discussion.
kadoban 373 days ago [-]
"not age appropriate" is defined nowhere, intentionally. It's meant to be enforced against non-straights, or scare them into not being able to say anything at all.
tsimionescu 373 days ago [-]
Let's parse that sentence carefully:
A school district may not encourage classroom discussion about [sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels] OR [in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students] .
So no discussion about gender identity or sexual orientation (so don't discuss about families with two mommies) at all in primary grade levels. Then, for all (other) grade levels, no such discussion that is not age-appropriate.
parkingrift 372 days ago [-]
Yes, and yes. It doesn’t prohibit natural classroom discussion at those younger ages. It doesn’t prohibit classroom instruction at all if it’s age appropriate.
treeman79 373 days ago [-]
So you support teaching highly sexual content in Kindergarten?
Because that’s what the law was about.
vkou 373 days ago [-]
A teacher mentioning about their same-sex spouse runs afoul of this law, but one mentioning their opposite-sex one does not.
Which is, of course, because there are two sexualities - straight, and political.
DiggyJohnson 373 days ago [-]
Why would a teacher discuss their personal life with K-3 students? Asking about a teacher’s marriage was obviously out of place in my experience, and for good reason. It’s not a topic for the classroom.
DocTomoe 373 days ago [-]
> "What did you do during summer break, Mrs Dickson?"
> "Clara, my wife, and I went to see bears at Yosemite. It was so exciting! Can you point to Yosemite on a map?"
Everyday situation at any school I ever went to. Schools are not learning factories, they are social places, especially in K-3.
DuskStar 373 days ago [-]
"My family and I went to see bears at Yosemite. It was so exciting! Can you point to Yosemite on a map?"
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
Which is more likely to start a controversy and trigger the law? A teacher saying that she and her husband went to a Christmas parade or a woman saying her and her wife went to a Pride parade?
373 days ago [-]
DocTomoe 373 days ago [-]
Just because a thing can be expressed in different words does not mean everyone always has the awareness to choose words that are politically desirable at every single point of their lives - especially when you are trying to teach children to use precise language (family implies a group of more than two people), and when identical similar language is perfectly ok if you have the right set of genitalia.
I am not arguing for teaching toddlers about homosexual BDSM culture here. I just think that particular law is overreaching its goals, possibly to stroke the egos of religious zealots.
DiggyJohnson 372 days ago [-]
I just don’t see how a teacher mentioning a same sex spouse is obviously violating the law in the way you’re worried about.
Izkata 372 days ago [-]
No, that's just what the media wants you to think by calling it the "don't say gay" bill. In truth, both of those are equally allowed.
UncleMeat 373 days ago [-]
The law covers every age group. Do you think that the proponents of the law think that a book with trans protagonists is “developmentally appropriate” for 8th graders?
373 days ago [-]
fuckyah 373 days ago [-]
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
mattnewton 373 days ago [-]
I read the original poster as saying “we should look carefully here, because the law is written by people who I think do not appear to share our values, and may have different effects because of those differences” which is a fine position to have, and not incompatible with debate. I don’t think we need to immediately jump to civil war.
spoils19 373 days ago [-]
andrew_ 373 days ago [-]
Anything remotely politically polarizing on HN consistently brings out that crowd. The tribalism on HN is intense.
user3939382 373 days ago [-]
> pro book banning in libraries
I've seen tons of recent support for censorship from ideas and speech the (left? I wouldn't consider it actually left) doesn't like. Then you have conservatives moving against these books that promote woke religion and suddenly these same people are very pro free speech.
frob 373 days ago [-]
There's a huge difference between saying, "LGBT people are people," and "LBGT people should be shunned out of existence." Words have meanings.
nilespotter 373 days ago [-]
I see, so we allow the ideas that you agree with, and ban the ones you don't. FREE SPEECH!
mattigames 373 days ago [-]
I hope that if someone writes a book saying people should physically harm you (yes, specifically you by name and picture) then you will not ask for that person to be put on jail -arguably the worst kind of ban possible- or say anything to stop that book from continuing being published, otherwise you would be an hypocrite for not really following your logic in which words should have no consequences for their authors.
biglearner1day 373 days ago [-]
> I hope that if someone writes a book saying people should physically harm you
One could argue that calls for gender-affirming surgeries or treatments are equally, if not, worse. These topics are especially prevalent in the LGBTQ community, as I have found from my experience. Nevertheless, we seem to encourage this kind of behavior whereas we. It is important to be aware of which ideas you are rejecting, especially when the community you seem to be defending is also committing acts of the same caliber.
UncleMeat 373 days ago [-]
No one couldn’t. I’m sorry, but this is garbage. Harm is a thing. Transphobia is transphobia.
I’m sure that racist whites thought that MLK was agitating for “equally bad, if not worse” things than Governor Faubus but they were just wrong.
biglearner1day 373 days ago [-]
I understand that you have a rich imagination, please do not use it to justify censorship.
UncleMeat 372 days ago [-]
This is wholly independent of policy initiatives. The idea that books that discuss transition are morally equivalent to something like The Turner Diaries is worthy of derision.
371 days ago [-]
mattigames 373 days ago [-]
Banning books that talk against the Holocaust and promoting books that talk about gender-related surgeries are nowhere close in the damage they can potentially create even if you take the most pessimistic stance possible about the later, a sense of proportion is needed in any discussion.
biglearner1day 373 days ago [-]
I hope you can see the hypocrisy and bias in your desire to ban ideas you dislike – it's dangerous. A better outcome would be to fight bad ideas with good ideas.
mattigames 372 days ago [-]
And I hope you see the hipocrisy in saying that my idea about banning ideas that are bad for society is a bad idea. Because if that was your "good idea" vs my "bad idea" it didn't win that fight, just like it almost never does, and instead marketing, marketing budgets, preconceived notions, convenient beliefs, upbringing, the hard limit in the number of ideas one can learn about in one's lifetime and many other factors outweighs the fantasy that all ideas should be given equal exposure, as in a book titled "we should kill black people" should be countered with one titled "we shouldn't kill black people" and that every single person in every generation should extensively read both and come to their own conclusion and not use any conclusion society already learned as a whole.
starik36 373 days ago [-]
The "shoe on the other foot" syndrome.
midoridensha 373 days ago [-]
>I've seen tons of recent support for censorship from ideas and speech the (left? I wouldn't consider it actually left) doesn't like.
The left has always been pro-censorship: Stalin and Mao, for instance, set up societies with lots of censorship.
The right is also pro-censorship: think Hitler, or any religious conservatives for that matter.
AlphaSite 373 days ago [-]
The extreme left and right are both fairly problematic, although for different reasons and to different degrees.
midoridensha 373 days ago [-]
Well when comparing Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, I don't really see any significant degree of difference...
If you're talking about what modern Americans consider "left" and "right", though, I'd agree, but what Americans consider "left" generally isn't very far left, and it depends on who you ask: talk to an internationally-minded American and they'll say the Democratic party is centrist at best, or center-right. Talk to a Trump voter and they'll say that party is "far-left radical communists".
snovv_crash 373 days ago [-]
On economic issues and welfare, sure. But when it comes to gender activism the US left is way further over than the rest of the world, to the point that they've alienated a large part of their original support base.
hackerlight 373 days ago [-]
To different degrees? I'm not sure about that...
The right is significantly more dangerous now, but I don't see that as a historically universal truth.
int_19h 372 days ago [-]
Authoritarians have always been pro-censorship. Libertarians have always been anti-censorship.
Both exist on either end of the ideological spectrum. Right-wing authoritarianism is a thing, and so is left-wing libertarianism.
twblalock 373 days ago [-]
What Florida is asking for is not different than what many on the left have been asking for. The motivation is different, but the powers they want are the same.
People on the left need to remember that if they give the government more power to regulate speech online, whether it is to fight disinformation or hate speech or whatever else, the right wing will have the same power the next time they win office. It's so short sighted.
Unless you want our society to vacillate between left-wing censorship and right-wing censorship every time power changes hands, you should oppose giving any more censorship powers to governments.
ajross 373 days ago [-]
> many on the left have been asking [to] give the government more power to regulate speech online
No one on the left wants the government to do this. What happens is that "many on the left" tend to yell loudly about stuff to the extent that people in power feel they need to moderate their own speech and actions. Virtually no one on the left wants "the government" to do this.
The left, in fact, is extremely dependent on its ability to exercise free speech rights to make this happen. Everyone you want to cite who got "cancelled"? They got cancelled because someone else exercised their first amendment right to a hissy fit. Literally no one is trying to censor you. They're just shouting louder (and, to some extent, better and more convincingly).
akomtu 373 days ago [-]
WH went as far as creating a Disinformation Board. It got quickly labeled as Ministry of Truth, and the Board got disbanded shortly after, but the message was clear.
ajross 371 days ago [-]
It wasn't the White House, it was DHS. If you meant "the executive branch" you should say that, calling it the WH makes it sound like this was an effort of the office of the President and not someone three tiers down. And it wasn't going to censor anything, as Homeland Security doesn't have any such authority, it was about counter-messaging. And no one but political enemies called it the "Ministry of Truth".
But indeed, the count-counter-messaging was too strong and it was shut down, because at the end of the day what amounts a PR organization isn't going to be very useful vs. the ammunition it can provide to people wanting to scream about censorship.
Hilariously that statement is a perfect example of the kind of disinformation and memery techniques that that (aborted) department was trying to refute.
TeeMassive 373 days ago [-]
Net neutrality was about bandwith, not content. PACs lobbies and religion are 1A protected and not specific to Florida or Republicans, they can't and don't ban book that's fake news unless you consider all books acceptable in schools such as Mein Kampf and Play Boy magazines.
Also none of what you said addresses the the proposed legislation.
bastawhiz 373 days ago [-]
> Net neutrality was about bandwith, not content
This is not true. Net neutrality is about service providers not getting to choose which services you connect with. If your ISP decided you can use Hulu but have to pay $10/mo extra for Netflix, that's a net neutrality issue. It's not about the volume of bytes. It's about who the bytes are coming from and going to, which is a content issue.
specialist 373 days ago [-]
One challenge with "net neutrality" is everyone has their own working definition.
My bro is the head tech guy for a cable company. He opposes "net neutrality". For B2B reasons. For him, it's about interconnect fees and fairness. Something like they build the pipes and someone, let's say TikTok, hogs all the bandwidth without paying their fair share.
I have no idea if my bro's narrative makes any sense. My bro also believes The Flintstones is a documentary (creationist). So I usually just smile and nod along when he starts to rant about something.
Whereas my understanding is closer to what you've stated; net neutrality is a B2C policy issue.
Whatever the case, my bro and myself, with our very different understandings and priorities, have no overlap in our positions.
travisjungroth 373 days ago [-]
> let's say TikTok, hogs all the bandwidth without paying their fair share.
I’m biased in that I work at a company that uses a lot of bandwidth. My opinions are my own.
Companies like TikTok pay their fair share. They pay their provider to take their bytes. Their provider pays one of the “big pipe” companies and passes the bytes along. Then they pass it along and charge your bro’s company. Then your bro’s company passes it along and chargers the consumer. This is oversimplified, but it’s the general flow.
What your bro wants to do is skip the line. It’s not enough to charge consumers, he wants to charge the companies, or the consumers more depending on the company.
It’s like UPS opening up your package, seeing there are Nikes in there and wanting to charge either you or Nike extra. You’re already paying for delivery.
orlp 373 days ago [-]
It's all smoke and mirrors. The real problem is that ISPs sell the very same thing to multiple people for full price, and when things break because multiple people want to use the thing they paid for at the same time they blame you for taking more than your 'fair share'.
That is the disconnect. In their mind you are 'sharing' with all the other people that bought the same thing, whereas you believe you were the only one that bought what they said they would sell you, like any other purchase works.
specialist 372 days ago [-]
Thanks y'all. The "B2B anti net neutrality" (my phrase) position didn't make any sense to me. But what do I know?
I imagine lobbyists buffaloing your average elected representative. It's a compelling story. Even if it's untrue.
amaranth 373 days ago [-]
TikTok is paying their ISP, that's who you'd look at to fund upgrades to the interconnect. Wanting to charge TikTok or the users of TikTok is just looking for a way to double dip. Or, more likely, a way for them to deprioritize YouTube TV so their own streaming live TV service looks better.
TeeMassive 372 days ago [-]
So not about content then. And who you connect to is part of bandwidth and how it is distributed.
bastawhiz 372 days ago [-]
Hulu and Netflix use an arguably identical amount of bandwidth for each user, and how and where that data is routed is essentially moot. It's not about the bandwidth, it's about what's in those bytes: the only practical difference is whose content the bytes encode.
uup 373 days ago [-]
Whether or not the first amendment applies to PACs is highly contentious. For instance, I don't think people have a constitutional right to form corporations, so I'm all for limiting the political speech of PACs. Just as I'm ok with limiting things people can do with their car via licensing.
chrismcb 373 days ago [-]
Political speech is speech. In fact it is the most important speech to protect.
uup 373 days ago [-]
The issue at hand is whether or not you can spend unlimited amounts of money on that speech via a corporation. Individuals cannot spend unlimited money donating to political campaigns, for instance.
Ultimately, we value free speech because it leads to a more fair and just society. It's not a rule that is followed by blind faith. Personally, I think allowing unlimited corporate spending on political speech amplifies the voices of a select few so that others are not heard. Essentially censorship of the masses. I fail to see how that leads to a fair and just society.
patmcc 373 days ago [-]
>>The issue at hand is whether or not you can spend unlimited amounts of money on that speech via a corporation. Individuals cannot spend unlimited money donating to political campaigns, for instance.
Now, both individuals and corporations can donate to Super PACs an unlimited amount, yes. But corporations have no different limits than individuals. The whole point of so-called Super PACs is they're theoretically "Independent-expenditure-only political committees" and can't coordinate with candidates. Basically the "We have strong views about abortion" Super PAC can collect as much money as they want from anyone they want* and run as many ads as they want telling people which candidates share their view on abortion and which are monsters.
You may view this as vile and bad, and that's fair, but why should a group of people spending their money together (i.e. a corporation or union or whatever) have fewer rights than an individual spending their money alone?
*Foreign nationals maybe not included in this? Not sure.
fwip 373 days ago [-]
Because corporations have funds disproportionate to the people, and because corporate donations are overwhelmingly controlled by the kind of people who run corporations.
patmcc 373 days ago [-]
They have the money anyway though? Of course the rich will have a dispropriate amount of power, that's what money does. It's not because of "corporations" or super PACs or whatever. Show me a system where a rich man doesn't have more power and influence than a poor man.
When you ban or limit groups of people, like corporations or unions or co-ops, from spending on elections, you give more power to those rich individuals, not less.
fwip 371 days ago [-]
Corporations (often) have more wealth than those rich men heading the corporation do.
For example, Disney's CEO is about five million dollars. Disney the corporation has about 13 billion dollars cash-on-hand.
uup 373 days ago [-]
I didn’t say that a group of people should have different rights than individuals. I think we should view elections as a central component of our democracy. Allowing entities, either corporations or individuals, to spend exorbitant amounts of money undermines the very principle of democracy by making the votes of a wealthy few worth more than everyone else. “Vote” here being a figurative reference to electoral influence.
patmcc 373 days ago [-]
Your claim was literally that corporations can spend unlimited amounts and people can't, which is simply untrue.
What's an exorbitant amount? Imagine some people, passionate about their particular political issue, pooling their money together to put up billboards, run radio ads, get a few TV spots, have a spread in the newspaper, buy some instagram ads, whatever. That's speech! Of course it is! Having the government restrict is a terrible precedent. The ability to try and influence other people, to convince them that your position or your candidate is the right one, is also a principle of democracy.
uup 372 days ago [-]
These were my exact words:
> The issue at hand is whether or not you can spend unlimited amounts of money on that speech via a corporation. Individuals cannot spend unlimited money donating to political campaigns, for instance.
I specifically said individual donations to political campaigns were limited. I think you’re arguing a very pedantic point that I didn’t even make rather than talking about whether or not our society would be better off limiting all forms of political spending.
zeroonetwothree 373 days ago [-]
Individuals can spend unlimited money directly.
Let’s say I want to personally spent $1 million supporting a candidate I like. But I’m worried their rival will sue me for libel. So I’d like to form a LLC so that I won’t be personally liable in that case. This seems reasonable to allow.
TeeMassive 373 days ago [-]
Liberty of association is 1A protected.
intimidated 373 days ago [-]
That's a keen insight about books. Thank you.
buscoquadnary 373 days ago [-]
Yes yes yes continue to focus on the partisan differences, tear the world apart, the other side is evil because they have an R next to their name, the other side is (D)ifferent.
It's all the other bad side, not the same freaking loonies that keep everything status quo and pat each others backs.
hall0ween 373 days ago [-]
To me, you’re missing the point of the comment. OP points a group of people’s <i>actions</i>, not their <i>affiliation</i>. Well unless their affiliation forces them to do particular actions.
klyrs 373 days ago [-]
Meanwhile, Florida is purging libraries of unpopular political opinions. This is not about a principled approach to free speech. It's about protecting the right to enforce religious-inspired bigotry, tearing down the separation of church and state even as that bigotry becomes "unpopular."
blast 373 days ago [-]
I agree with you about that, but I also (might) agree with them about this.
Not that you said otherwise, but... I think we should go back to a transactional mix-and-match style of politics, with different coalitions per issue, instead of the "agree with your friend tribe and disagree with your enemy tribe about everything" style that we seem to be locked into these days. There shouldn't be any shame in being part of the same coalition on one issue with people who are reprehensible on other issues. Agreeing with the Florida government about some point of social media regulation doesn't imply I agree with them about anything else.
space_fountain 373 days ago [-]
Isn't it consistent to say the government deciding not distribute books is wrong for the same reason the government telling private companies they must distribute speech they disagree with is wrong? Both clearly violate free speech. Maybe you don't actually think free speech is the standard, maybe it's something more vague like an open society, but I don't see this as any different than the state mandating churches reserve 15 minutes at the start of each sermon for anyone who wants to get up and say something
somenameforme 373 days ago [-]
There are many responses here, but I think one of the most relevant is that of natural monopolies. If you created a competitor that was somehow objectively superior to Facebook in every possible technical way, it would still almost certainly fail. Because Facebook's product isn't their software, but access to the billions of people using it. They are effectively doing little more than acting as a carrier for access to society. And you can't compete against that.
This immediately puts massive scale social media in a very unique place. By contrast, public school libraries are anything but a monopoly. If they don't offer a book you want, there are countless other ways to get it that are no less convenient, to say nothing of the digital age and searching for 'book i want pdf.' This generalizes to other scenarios as well. At one time it was believed that private businesses out be able to restrict employment or service based on things like the race or religion of their customers/applicants. But as this started to become a more substantial issue in terms of scale, society decided otherwise.
danaris 372 days ago [-]
> Because Facebook's product isn't their software, but access to the billions of people using it. They are effectively doing little more than acting as a carrier for access to society. And you can't compete against that.
But that's an argument against Facebook in particular, not against social media as a category.
Fundamentally, the problem is that we have allowed the modern "public square" to be in these spaces entirely owned by private companies.
What we really need is an open protocol for a federated social network that works very much like Facebook (so, not something like Mastodon, which is designed to work like Twitter, for instance—though it would probably be worthwhile to do the same with it) and have the government operate some public "reference servers" that anyone can join, while others can also operate servers that can federate with them. That way, you're still able to connect to people even if they're not on your particular server...provided they don't belong to a server that's been blocked from federation due to hate speech or something.
juve1996 373 days ago [-]
This is the problem today.
Everyone says they want free speech. But deep down they don't. Some don't want gay marriage written in books, and some don't want anti-vaxxers to post misinformation. Those are 2 sides of the same coin.
Freedom of speech is a critical cornerstone of liberal government. The fact that so many sides want to reduce this right is what is scary.
intrasight 373 days ago [-]
Very well said - and inspired me to chime in.
We have much less freedom than we think, and the freedom we do have we pay a very high price for. I often use the phrase "What price freedom?" in conversations, and unfortunately most don't understand what it means.
rhn_mk1 371 days ago [-]
What does it mean?
intrasight 370 days ago [-]
I think of it as having these meanings:
1. Your freedom can cause problems to me an to society as a whole
2. We pay much in blood and treasure to maintain our freedom
3. There are unintended consequences and knock-on effects to most all rules regarding freedom.
Or to generalize: "Freedom isn't free"
1270018080 373 days ago [-]
But there isn't an enlightened centrist middle ground here where we allow all speech off of principle. First off, because that has never happened in American history (or any country's history?). So there is no good ol days to look back on when speech was more free. Second of all, people are way too stupid to process information on their own. Governments are at their best when they are paternalistic, that's why we have seatbelts, no lead in gasoline etc. Of course the question is "who can decide what's good for you?" but it's definitely not Florida's government. Or the demographic that frequently shows up on r/hermancainaward
Dracophoenix 373 days ago [-]
> Governments are at their best when they are paternalistic, that's why we have seatbelts, no lead in gasoline etc.
The same paternalism has justified poisoning one's own people in a "war" against alcohol, dictated who was allowed to have sex with whom in privacy of their own home, and resulted in human experimentation for the supposed betterment of society.
a-user-you-like 373 days ago [-]
Of course the law should dictate who you sleep with. In the 13 colonies adultery was rightly a capital crime.
gnaritas99 373 days ago [-]
danaris 372 days ago [-]
> I think we should go back to a transactional mix-and-match style of politics, with different coalitions per issue, instead of the "agree with your friend tribe and disagree with your enemy tribe about everything" style that we seem to be locked into these days.
There is a way to get there: it's changing our voting method.
Single-choice, first-past-the-post, winner-take-all voting is effectively guaranteed to result in a two-party system.
There are a number of alternative voting systems, and all of them that I've heard of have flaws, but Ranked Choice Voting is one of the better ones, and seems to be gaining some traction recently in a few places.
If you really want to break our political duopoly, push for Ranked Choice Voting at every level you have influence over. It'll be easier the more local you get, and the more jurisdictions adopt it, the easier it will be to get others to do the same.
tshaddox 373 days ago [-]
Unfortunately political power is not generally distributed on a per-issue basis. In most cases it simply is not an option for an individual citizen to support increasing personA's political power to regulate social networks without increasing personA's overall political power.
munk-a 373 days ago [-]
I am a one-issue voter (whenever it's on the ballot) and my issue is voting reform because, in my view, the two party system America (and almost Canada!) is stuck with is just making inter-party discussions on policies impossible. Once the political class has stratified like it has in America and can box out anyone who doesn't pass a litmus test of dozens of issues (Oh, you're pro-gun rights but also pro-abortion access? Sorry, neither us nor the other guys want you) then the political system will quickly break down.
We desperately need elections where more than just the two dominant parties can compete without a spoiler effect.
This is happening, just FYI, up in Canada right now - there are four parties worth talking about - Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Bloc Quebecois - the last two are essentially just regional parties which do occasionally win surprise seats but mostly just exist within a localized area. That is enough, in our parliamentary system to force cooperation at a federal level - but without serious action I can't see any ending in sight other than slowly devolving to American politics.
LBJsPNS 373 days ago [-]
"you're pro-gun rights but also pro-abortion access? Sorry, neither us nor the other guys want you"
Uhm... you do realize there are plenty of us on the left who adopt exactly those positions?
hatefulmoron 373 days ago [-]
Isn't that his point? Plenty of you exist, yet your party will not represent your interests. The "left" party that you vote for has chosen a set of values that are contradictory to your own, and you have no recourse because who else will you vote for?
LBJsPNS 370 days ago [-]
You seem to think kthe left wants to ban guns. Nope.
hatefulmoron 367 days ago [-]
You continue to ignore the point. Your party. The one you vote for. Not "the left", whatever that means.
munk-a 369 days ago [-]
It depends on the specific politician but I think a generally accurate characterization of the left is that they want to restrict gun access (some of us would say that'd be a "sensible restriction" while others would disagree). There are some notable exceptions here from rural states. One of my Senators, Bernie Sanders, is actually rather pro-gun rights coming from a state that has a strong hunting tradition - though he is less in favor of handgun access.
cam_l 373 days ago [-]
The thing is, even just a few non party affiliate votes in parliament can have a huge impact. Both parties could get more of a chance of their pet policies being implemented under a multi party system. That is, if you were to take the political parties at face value as caring about the issues they promote.
The reality is, the parties are systemically more interested in self preservation than governing. So neither seem to support serious reform.
373 days ago [-]
pstuart 373 days ago [-]
Campaign finance reform should be part of that. It's legalized bribery.
juve1996 373 days ago [-]
I don't see how letting governments regulate social media is in any way good. I don't know how anyone who is "libertarian" can now support this initiative of government overreach.
Imagine creating a forum and now the Florida government dictates what you can and can't moderate. Disastrous.
rainsford 373 days ago [-]
In an ideal world that's true, but in reality it's probably not a good approach to treat political alliances on issues as independent transactions to be taken at purely face value. If you're an advocate for free speech, it's probably worth being extremely dubious of Republican efforts aimed at "big tech" even if they claim to care about the same issue you do. For one thing, those efforts are clearly motivated by very specific speech and even if you hope that translates into better protection for speech in general, it's worth considering if that's actually what your new allies are actually aiming for. There's a long history of policies claiming to be for the general good ending up exclusively benefiting a select few in practice. That's not always the case of course, but especially worth keeping an eye out for when the folks advocating for the policy are making it fairly clear up front that's their agenda.
The other issue is a bit more strategic. Policy victory brings electoral victory, and you don't get to pick and choose which other policies come along for the ride when someone wins. Nobody agrees with a politician or political party on every issues of course, but it's probably not a good idea to ignore the rest of their views entirely just because they happen to back at least one policy you agree with. At the risk of invoking Goodwin, if you weren't a fan of that Hitler fellow but supported him anyways because you liked road construction, you might have regretted your choice.
systemvoltage 373 days ago [-]
Well put. Welcome to contemporary political discussions. Objectivity is really scarce. The entire discussion goes down the toilet due to some form of 1) whataboutism 2) moral superiority complex 3) strawmanning 4) gas lighting. Add a dozen or so common biases and you've got a toxic brew of non-productivity. Furthermore, reconition of biases from a list like this [1] can be both good or bad. Bad in a way that it can be weaponized to shutdown conversation. Basically, everything you ever say (including this comment) would violate one of these cognitive biases, its a huge list. Feel free to use them as weapons! /s. There are also eggregious misuse of 2) which comes in the form of "For the children" or "Killing babies" or "For the good of the planet", etc.
Modernity has brought us closer to subjectivism than ever.
It's literally impossible to implement with this system of government. The current two party system is the most efficient form of your idea that can be implemented in America.
imgabe 373 days ago [-]
Florida is a state. Several counties in Florida are removing books from school libraries. There is no statewide policy in Florida to ban books from libraries in general. Libraries are generally managed at the city / county level.
honkdaddy 373 days ago [-]
> Florida is purging libraries of unpopular political opinions
I think the fact that you deliberately expressed what's been a complicated, and almost exclusively school-board driven, phenomenon in such a simple way shows you either haven't read much outside the headlines, or are just hoping to pull people to your side while discouraging them to do any actual research.
Either way, your comment comes across as just as transparently politically motivated as the actions you're criticizing. If you don't like DeSantis and want him voted out, please just say that, it's not necessary to beat around the bush.
klyrs 372 days ago [-]
> If you don't like DeSantis and want him voted out, please just say that
No, I want him voted out because of specific actions and I also want every politician inclined to take those specific actions voted out. I don't hate him because he's a Republican, I don't hate him because he's a straight white Christian man, I don't hate him because he's from Florida, I don't hate him. I hate the actions that he's performed (funny thing about that MLK quote; some people just cannot tolerate being judged by the contents of their character).
To pretend that the people behind these "school-board driven" actions are not motivated by, encouraged by, and supportive of DeSantis is completely ludicrous. Anti-LGBT activists are clamoring to join school boards around the country, looking to effect the same policies.
honkdaddy 372 days ago [-]
Thank you. Admitting your perspective on this topic is based in personal politics is ultimately a good thing, and makes for more better reading for other users.
tomcam 373 days ago [-]
> Florida is purging libraries of unpopular political opinions.
For example?
favorited 373 days ago [-]
"Palm Beach County school district tells teachers to review classroom library books for references to racism, sexism and oppression"
Countless districts have a de-facto ban on fascist books—and all of their books about racial politics likely lean the same ideological direction.
I don't see how this is any different.
UncleMeat 373 days ago [-]
tomcam 373 days ago [-]
So “review” now means “purge“?
shadowfacts 373 days ago [-]
Oh, I wonder what could possibly happen based on the results of the initial review. Let's see:
> District staff sent out a list of questions teachers have to answer, like — does a book encourage students to believe that people are racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously? [...] If teachers answer “yes” or “unsure” to any of the questions in the district’s guidance, the book is to be removed from the classroom for further review.
Sorry, that one's actually a school board in California, but the same idea applies here, right? The state is to blame?
case0x00 373 days ago [-]
To what are you referring?
klyrs 373 days ago [-]
There is a "satire[1]" meme floating with some disinformation about book bans in Florida. However, the state is second, only behind Texas, in actual book bans[2].
Relatedly, the vague "don't say gay" law has a significant impact on LGBTQ teachers right to free expression -- straight teachers are totally free to talk about their spouses, for example, but gay teachers are not. Quite reminiscent of the "don't ask don't tell" policy.
What's struck me as weird about this is that I don't recall a single teacher ever mentioning their spouse, or their personal weekend plans.
The idea that a teacher wants to talk to their students about their personal lives is utterly foreign to me.
Maybe it's just a sign of times changing?
Edit: this thought came to me in the context of a quote I saw from a teacher upset he couldn't talk about going surfing with his husband.
There was a wide enough income gap in our school that teachers talking about vacations was frowned upon, since you never really knew which kids didn't actually ever get to go on vacations, etc.
klyrs 373 days ago [-]
I had a teacher who taught a class that regularly featured his vacation photos because he spent his summers traveling. Sounds super corny, but he managed to make it interesting, and the first-person account brought to life the countries, religions and philosophies that we learning about. His wife occasionally showed up in those pictures.
My school also had two married teachers who shared a surname. We all knew they were married.
There were also a few teachers (band, orchestra, sports coaches) whose spouses would volunteer at events and travel with them.
Also quite a few teachers wore religious symbols -- cross on a necklace kind of thing. And quite a few of my teachers had pictures of their families on their desks. They didn't make a big deal about it, but evidence was in plain sight.
Now, I was in the high school in the 90s. I'm not sure when you think this changed.
tshaddox 373 days ago [-]
> What's struck me as weird about this is that I don't recall a single teacher ever mentioning their spouse, or their personal weekend plans.
That strikes me as odd. I recall this happening many times. Heck, there were even several pairs of teachers who met at school and got married. One teacher proposed to another teacher during a town parade where many students and teachers were present. It's not like teachers dwelled on personal details in class. It's just that it would be impossible to miss.
skissane 373 days ago [-]
Doesn't seem odd to me at all. Growing up, I almost never heard my teachers talk about their partners or spouses or romantic relationships. I remember my year 6 teacher got married and decided to change her surname as a result – but that's all I can remember ever hearing about her marriage, and if she hadn't decided to change her surname, I doubt I would have heard about it at all.
Even now, we know very little about the romantic lives of our son's teachers – and I expect our son knows even less than we do. Even when we do know things, it is through gossip among parents, or socialising with teachers – not from teachers telling the children about it in class.
jackson1442 373 days ago [-]
It was relatively common in school to discuss what happened over breaks, weekends, etc. to build conversation skills. Also, almost every k12 teacher I had would prepare a slideshow about themselves to present on the first day of class along with the syllabus. After all, you're spending a lot of time in that classroom as a k12 student.
Many teachers also have pictures of their family on their desks, as one might in their office at any other job.
Especially in lower grades, teachers are not robots that exclusively teach content from bell to bell each day.
honkdaddy 373 days ago [-]
> Also, almost every k12 teacher I had would prepare a slideshow about themselves to present on the first day of class along with the syllabus
This is pretty different from coming to school and telling 7yos about the sex party you went to this weekend and which gender you were identifying as when you went. This is the reality some parents are trying to prevent when they say some American teachers are taking their freedom to share their personal lives a bit far.
Let's be real, obviously there's nothing wrong with having a teacher who's LGBT. What people have a problem with are the folks who derive their entire identity out of that, and then greatly encourage the kids they teach to do the same. It's not dissimilar from a teacher being a veteran and insisting on sharing that part of their life with their students, to a point where parents find it crosses boundaries. We actually had a teacher at my high school who used to be a sniper in the Canadian Armed Forces. He was eventually told by the principal no more Afghan war stories, as it was making the students feel uncomfortable hearing that sort of thing from teacher.
The very obvious comparison here is a teacher coming to school and telling their kids, in detail, about their sex life or multiple gender transition surgeries. While they're topics which I'm comfortable with, I can't speak for every parent and I think it's wrong for the state to say "these topics MUST be socially acceptable to you, bigot."
Just teach the class! You don't need to get them excited about queer culture or gun culture or joining the military. Everyone would be better so much better off if teachers could just largely leave their personal lives at home and stick to the syllabus.
jackson1442 372 days ago [-]
> This is pretty different from coming to school and telling 7yos about the sex party you went to this weekend and which gender you were identifying as when you went.
When has this ever happened?
> What people have a problem with are the folks who derive their entire identity out of that, and then greatly encourage the kids they teach to do the same.
When has this ever happened?
> The very obvious comparison here is a teacher coming to school and telling their kids, in detail, about their sex life or multiple gender transition surgeries
When has this ever happened?
Straight people also have sex parties. Why are we legislating against LGBT people specifically?
honkdaddy 372 days ago [-]
>When has this ever happened?
>When has this ever happened?
>When has this ever happened?
Were you expecting a news article? I'm not the 7yo in the classroom, these are just things I've heard from other parents while I've been spending time in FL. People are earnestly scared about what their kids are being taught in school and I think it's pretty cruel to abuse them instead of taking their concerns seriously.
Any of the examples I used are pretty obviously anecdotal, I'm surprised that wasn't clear to you. Not everything which has ever happened in this world has a Wikipedia article or video to link back to, some things just happen and then people tell others in their community, they don't necessarily run to write a blog post.
If you aren't living in FL right now I'm not sure how nuanced your perspective is going to be on the topic, but your opinions are always welcome, of course.
jackson1442 371 days ago [-]
> Were you expecting a news article?
Yes, actually.
I can scaremonger straight people equally well, but choose not to. LGBT people are just the latest casualty in the nonsense "culture war."
People saw cat litter on campus, which is commonly used to clean vomit off of floors at school, and fabricated this outrage. Anecdotes are not enough to villainize an entire group of people.
I live in TX, the book-banning capital of the US, so not too far off from FL.
honkdaddy 371 days ago [-]
Nobody's trying to villainize any LGBT people, you're the one jumping to that conclusion. I'm bisexual, two of my sisters and half my friends are queer, the fact you're unable to hear stories like this without assuming they're scaremongering lies says much more about you and your ability to process information than it does said apparent 'culture war'.
I shared an anecdote from a woman who had absolutely reason to lie, this wasn't a conversation on the internet, this was a handful of us chatting together at the dog park. Did you seriously expect me to do what you just did and smugly tell her that without a source she's just speaking lies? It's a fairly juvenile and reddit move, but again, we're seeing it right now.
If the only way you allow your priors to be updated is by reading news articles, I think you're going to find yourself fairly behind in cultural trends.
Finally, if news articles are truly the only way you can read, please feel free to read about what's happening near my hometown. [1] This should align well with your current assumption that it's not possible for LGBT people to do any wrong, and that any accusation of such is just right-wing 'nonsense'.
> This is pretty different from coming to school and telling 7yos about the sex party you went to this weekend and which gender you were identifying as when you went.
That sounds extremely specific. Do you have a source? Because I tend to agree, if somebody told my kid shit like that I'd also want them fired too.
honkdaddy 372 days ago [-]
Are you expecting a news article? This is a story a mom at the dog park told me last week. How you feel about it is entirely your own choice and makes 0 difference to me, but asking for a source on what a teacher said in a 7yo's classroom is pretty funny I think. It's like asking for a source of your coworker making an inappropriate joke or a dog peeing on your lawn - do you operate under the framework that only things with internet sources actually happened?
If someone at the dog park told you a story, is your response to ask for a source and dismiss her when she tells you that one very obviously doesn't exist? Seems like a funny way to interact with people.
fzeroracer 373 days ago [-]
Did you never have a teacher you were friendly with or served as a mentor even outside of class? I grew up in poverty and if it wasn't for a couple teachers going above and beyond I probably would've never got the help I need to get free community college tuition.
With cases like that, personal details end up discussed inadvertently because it's impossible to avoid. So-and-so's wife might be a teacher in the same district, or they might show up at school during late work hours and so forth. Same if they're running a club or some extracurricular activity.
I don't think that's especially weird at all.
pstuart 373 days ago [-]
Indeed. And there's a difference between on observation that something exists (e.g., their same sex spouse) vs discussing their "romantic relationship".
So they want to shut down any and all speech in that regard but force companies to publish speech that may not fall within their terms of service.
This is small government?
pclmulqdq 373 days ago [-]
The so-called "don't say gay" law doesn't actually restrict LGBTQ teachers from talking about their gay partners in informal contexts: it bans them from teaching kids in a formal context about gender and sexuality (of any kind - heterosexual or homosexual) before a certain age and restricting it based on curriculum standards above that age.
The idea that the law restricts a male teacher from having a family photo or talking to students about what he did with his husband over vacation is completely false. That would be as illegal as preventing a teacher from praying with students in their off-time (after football games), which recently got re-affirmed by the supreme court. It only binds teachers' speech when they are operating in their official capacity as agents of the state.
While you might not agree with this particular restriction, agents of the state generally do not have free speech when they are acting in their official capacity. Teachers, DMV employees, and police officers all have lots of restrictions on their official speech. The ability of the people to restrict the speech of their agents is very important for maintaining a democracy. It keeps religion out of school curricula and it is what makes cops read you your rights when you are arrested.
TeeMassive 373 days ago [-]
The state can't censor books per the 1A.... unless you're considering restricting some publications unsuitable for children "banning books"...
Also the don't say gay bill is fake news because it doesn't say that.
anon291 373 days ago [-]
There are books public schools or public libraries may not carry, not bans..
Germany making pro Nazi rhetoric illegal no matter where is a ban (one I can agree with)
Florida making sure their Public money is not spent on this is not a ban. You can still own and publish these books in Florida. Or have them in a privately owned library or at a private university or school.
Let's stop hyperbolizing. It is actually totally reasonable to censor books in libraries targeted towards children. Not doing so is unreasonable.
joshuamorton 373 days ago [-]
If I donate a book that is banned, the school library will not accept it.
That is a ban.
anon291 373 days ago [-]
It costs money to keep a book.
And lending a book is a positive action. If you gave the library your playboy collection should they keep it? Why or why not? Clearly, it is important to have standards for school libraries. There are other books that elementary school libraries should not contain. For example, mein kampf should be maybe available to higher-grade high-schoolers. Certainly not children. My school library growing up would not lend books marked for older grades to younger ones without permission. This is the same thing.
andrew_ 373 days ago [-]
Does the bill in fact restrict anyone from saying the word "gay"? If not, continuing to use the misnomer is spreading misinformation.
There was so much misframing and misinformation about the bill, continuing to use the Democrat and media made up name and language for the bill shows your slant. Just because many media organizations kept calling it, that doesn't mean anybody here should.
It does not ban nor prevent the use of the word "gay." Asserting so is pushing information that is false, hence misinformation.
sangnoir 373 days ago [-]
> If not, continuing to use the misnomer is spreading misinformation.
Just like the reframing of "woke" and "critical race theory" are misinformation - right? Right?
I have accepted that reframing language is now a legitimate political tool, and from my PoV, the right has been doing it a lot, such as labelling any milquetoast protest by groups nominally on the left an "insurrection" after 1/6. I believe it's a deliberate attack akin to semantic satiation to render a word meaningless, the conservative operative bluntly admitted (on Twitter!) to successful rebranding "woke". That egg will not be unscrambled.
andrew_ 372 days ago [-]
I was raised that two wrongs don't make right. I'll continue to take the high road. I don't need to score points against anyone else.
sangnoir 372 days ago [-]
> I was raised that two wrongs don't make right.
You'll likely make a terrible politician[1] then, because that is a terrible approach in game theory when facing an opponent who defects consistently.
I was being descriptive - not prescriptive. This is now our political reality regardless of how we feel about it: politicians hold entire hearings to get 10-second sound-bites, and political operatives focus-group effective language which tends to be pithy and evocative (which gets called "misinformation" on HN when it's the other side doing it). Talking heads get coached on which phrases to use and the meme (in the original sense) gets spread and repeated by viewers/listeners. Asking people to stop using a specific term which was selected for being catchy is a losing battle - Pandora's box was opened on what are effectively PsyOps by political parties.
1. Jimmy Carter was a terrible politician in the same vein - he gave an honest answer when asked by the press if he had lusted after any woman who's not his wife. He is a good man, but that's not good politics.
rufus_foreman 373 days ago [-]
>> However, the state is second, only behind Texas, in actual book bans
The bans in the article you cited are done at the school district level, not the state level. Holding the executive branch of government of Florida responsible for those decisions would be similar to blaming the Biden administration for the actions of Florida's executive branch.
It also appears that the link you cited confuses curriculum selection with book banning. There's a range of what can be called a book ban. For example, when the novel Ulysses was banned, people who sold the book were arrested and imports of the book into the US were seized. That's definitely a book ban. Nothing of the sort is happening in Florida.
There are also cases where local school districts remove titles from school libraries, but those books can still be borrowed from public libraries, sold in book stores, or purchased or read online. If that's a book ban, it's not a book ban in the same sense that the ban of Ulysses was a book ban.
Then there are decisions by local school districts about what material should be used to teach classes in the schools in that district. For me, exercising control over school curriculum is not a book ban and is in no way similar to seizing copies of books and arresting people for selling those books.
joshuamorton 373 days ago [-]
Districts are banning books they believe they need to to comply with state law.
rufus_foreman 373 days ago [-]
Which books are banned under state law?
joshuamorton 372 days ago [-]
Ones which
1. Are complained about by a parent and
2. Are obscene
Note that 2 is open to interpretation, so this justification has been used to ban classics like beloved and the kite runner, as school librarians can face criminal penalties if they don't do what (a single) parent asks.
"Federal law strictly prohibits the distribution of obscene matter to minors. Any transfer or attempt to transfer such material to a minor under the age of 16, including over the Internet, is punishable under federal law."
Is that book banning?
Do you think federal laws against providing pornography to minors should be overturned?
joshuamorton 372 days ago [-]
The important thing is how the law is interpreted. In Florida, "Obscene" is being interpreted (and in some cases written into statute) as far more than just pornagraphic, with the express intent that people like you can motte-bailey like this and claim that it's "just" banning pornography, when it isn't.
For example, the graphic novel "Gender Queer" has been banned under the broad brush of "pornography" in Florida, when it's educational and certainly not intended to grant anyone sexual satisfaction. The key thing is that cis- and hetero-normative "obscenity", like an anatomy textbook is likely acceptable, but the same images in a book that described queerness would not be.
Specifically, to use your source, none of the books banned in Florida would pass the Miller test as all of them taken as a whole, posses "serious artistic, political, or scientific value", and few are "prurient" in nature, nor do they describe sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way.
To use the examples from above, Kite Runner and Beloved are both critically acclaimed, award-winning novels, to claim they have no artistic merit is...simply wrong.
LawTalkingGuy 360 days ago [-]
> cis- and hetero-normative "obscenity", like an anatomy textbook
If it's heteronormative to merely show anatomy (and presumably describe mating) then I don't understand why that's worth calling out. It's no insult to anyone to say that male-female relationships are the most common and the only ones that produce children. We don't need to represent everything as equally likely to say that it's okay.
As for cis, I struggle to see how anatomy would intersect with gender-identity at all. Bodies are male or female, and may be intersex.
> graphic novel "Gender Queer" has been banned under the broad brush of "pornography" in Florida, when it's educational
This feels like a problem of having to find a category. If there was an 'unapproved medical advice' category it would be more descriptive.
As for its educational content, it recommends - not merely discusses but actively recommends - drugs and breast-binding for something that many (most?) parents do not think is a medical condition.
> nor do they describe sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way.
In looking it up and reading it I discovered that the author said "It's been two years since it was published, why are they mad about it now?" and the answer to that is schools. The book wasn't being protested when it was available for sale, and in public libraries, only when it was placed in school libraries.
I think the 'patently offensive' element here is specifically that it's being placed in schools even though many parents don't want it and even explicitly over their objections.
a-user-you-like 373 days ago [-]
weakfish 373 days ago [-]
What book is encouraging that? Or are you using hyperbole to try and make your point sound more scary?
a-user-you-like 373 days ago [-]
Any book that confuses a kid on gender, what moral monster would do that
jedberg 373 days ago [-]
There are several types of common carriers.
One are transportation companies (including companies that transport electronic communication). The key differentiator between those and social media are that the content is private. So while they have to carry anything, the content of what they are carrying is from one party to another, and the carrier may not even know what it is. So that model shouldn't apply to social media.
The other type are broadcasters, like TV and Radio. But the way those are regulated, they don't have to show anyone's content all the time. They get to choose what content is shown, but also be liable for the content being shown.
But then there are cable companies. Which carry multiple broadcast channels. And they are not liable for the content on the channels they carry, nor do they have to carry all channels. What they do have to do however is set aside some of their capacity for public access. This is how social media should be regulated.
They can choose what channels (broadcasters) they want to carry, and the broadcaster is liable for content. Funny enough, this is already how social media works! The only change would be every social media being forced to add a section that is unmoderated for "public access" in which they would not be liable for the content.
I imagine that would go about as well as you'd expect. It would be filled with child porn, hate messages, and the occasional unpopular political opinion.
webmobdev 373 days ago [-]
Your analogy about tech platforms being similar to cable companies which broadcast multiple channel is not correct as the tech platforms also host these "channels" / content and it is the internet which enables their distribution. So if they host these content, and want to decide what content should be disseminated, they are actually acting like TV / Radio media platforms. In which case, they need to accept the liability for the content they disseminate, just like any TV or radio business have to. But obviously tech companies do not want to bear this burden.
Online platforms are both communication platforms for private communication and public broadcast platforms like TV and Radio. Just apply the existing laws and regulations to both these aspects. If they don't want any liability, then they should be treated as common carriers who have to be neutral to the content that flows on their platform - let the content producer be liable. Ofcourse, this means anonymous content cannot be allowed.
brk 373 days ago [-]
This seems to be centered on politics/candidates, which IMO is the wrong motivation.
Politicians really should not have special exemptions or privileges when it comes to free speech issues. Eg: they have exceptions to use robo-calls, text spam, etc.
Realistically, we probably need to define when an organization is a media influencer vs. a niche communications platform. I do think Facebook/Twitter/Etc. need to be held to a different level of accountability on things like this than say Tomshardware, or HN.
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
> This seems to be centered on politics/candidates, which IMO is the wrong motivation.
Because political censorship is the worst censorship (you might argue that all censorship is political.) It's like how political prisoners are the easiest sign a place is a dictatorship.
If the powerful are censoring the political process, there are no means to make any of the powerful less powerful. It becomes self-perpetuating.
bandyaboot 373 days ago [-]
> It's like how political prisoners are the easiest sign a place is a dictatorship.
That’s an easy sign right up until you have to define “political prisoner”. According to some, people convicted of crimes committed during the January 6th insanity are “political prisoners”.
Volundr 373 days ago [-]
It'd also not be unreasonable to look at many of the people imprisoned for the US's "war on drugs" that way. Many of those laws were written targeting "undesirable" voters.
0x445442 373 days ago [-]
I would define those convicted of January 6th “insanities” as political prisoners when those responsible for the Summer 2020 violence were not convicted of crimes and when people like Ray Epps were not prosecuted for their role on January 6th.
bandyaboot 373 days ago [-]
> when those responsible for the Summer 2020 violence were not convicted of crimes
First of all, Citation needed. Second of all, you realize that the people responsible for making prosecutorial decisions regarding Jan 6th crimes are not going to be the same people making those decisions for crimes committed during George Floyd protests and riots, right? You think they’re political prisoners because of perceived inconsistencies among decisions made by the DOJ on one hand and various people in local jurisdictions on the other? Just more of the same insanity that led to Jan 6th.
0x445442 372 days ago [-]
As I understand it there was plenty of federal property destroyed during the summer of 2020. Are you really saying the DOJ doesn’t prosecute people outside of DC? The insanity is turning a blind eye to the obvious hypocrisies and double standards that exist with the two examples.
bandyaboot 365 days ago [-]
Your feelings are telling you it’s hypocrisy, not your brain.
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
Political prisoners are people imprisoned for their speech and influence. A Jan 6 person could very well be a political prisoner, and since I'm not a Democrat I can't be sure of their collective guilt without actually reading about their cases.
seadan83 373 days ago [-]
> Political prisoners are people imprisoned for their speech and influence.
If so, that is the clearest violation of the 1st amendment. A common misunderstanding is that there is no unfettered right to free speech anywhere, anytime, free of any consequence. The 1st amendment only guarantees that the government shall not impose consequences based on speech alone (with the exception of the crowded movie theater example or incitements to imminent violence). That is very different from a movie theater asking someone to leave because they are talking (which the movie theater is perfectly in their right to deny service to anyone)
AFAIK, all Jan 6 convictions have been for trespass, obstruction of government, assault, etc.. If you know of any examples that do not fall into similar categories, that would be extremely interesting.
bandyaboot 373 days ago [-]
Can you honestly tell yourself that you offer the same charity to people arrested during George Floyd riots? That some of those people may very well be political prisoners? I think not.
brk 373 days ago [-]
But at the same time, politicians using social media to continuously publish blatant lies is also not a mechanism for stable government. In the past, this was regulated to a large degree by traditional media outlets being a filter of sorts and not just printing any random direct statement made by a politician.
I think there is a balance between "social media must not interfere with blatantly false statements from politicians" and "social media can ban their political detractors without consequence". The ideal reality would be the public actually holding politicians responsible for being deceptive or treasonous, but that does not appear to be on the horizon either.
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
> politicians using social media to continuously publish blatant lies is also not a mechanism for stable government.
The solution being proposed is to allow administrations to keep pushing narratives that support the regime. You can't consider yourself a defender of the population against politicians while also granting them the power to suppress speech through proxies. When you find yourself favorably referring to mainstream media in the past for their ability to control the speech of elected officials, you're spiraling towards Zimbabwe.
caf 373 days ago [-]
"through proxies" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
The alternative being suggested here seems to be to allow the regime to compel media outlet to publish their propaganda, because some don't like media outlets being able to choose the views they promote.
marcosdumay 373 days ago [-]
Political speech is not "speech made by politicians".
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
Who are you quoting, and why aren't you replying to them?
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
There is absolutely nothing stopping conservatives from establishing their own social media platform. Conservatives love “the free market” as long as it is working for them.
Whose fault is it that Truth Social is an abysmal failure?
_-david-_ 373 days ago [-]
You mean like Parler? Oh wait, some of the biggest tech companies, for all intents and purposes, killed it.
You can have a free market with monopolies/duopolies.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
There is a monopoly/duopoly on collocation centers? According to the former CEO of AWS, only 5% of all IT spend is on any cloud provider. The other 95% self host.
It amazes me that people on HN of all places is saying that they can’t create anything without a dependency on cloud providers.
_-david-_ 373 days ago [-]
>There is a monopoly/duopoly on collocation centers?
I was talking about Apple and Google removing the app from their app stores.
I think they are back now, but it looks like it killed much of its steam.
>According to the former CEO of AWS, only 5% of all IT spend is on any cloud provider. The other 95% self host
This number sounds a bit weird. I assume you are saying cloud costs are only 5% of IT spending which means it includes salaries. If that is the case you can't assume any level of self hosting. Can you provide the source on this or clarify what you are saying?
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
Andy Jassy is my skip*10 manager the last time I checked. But there are always re-orgs.
> With a $51B revenue run rate that’s growing 28% YoY (these were the Q4 2020 numbers we last publicly shared), it’s easy to forget that AWS is still in the very early stages of what’s possible. Less than 5% of the global IT spend is in the cloud at this point
Why does Parlor need to be an app at all? They can just be a website.
_-david-_ 373 days ago [-]
>Andy Jassy is my skip*10 manager the last time I checked. But there are always re-orgs.
You should reread the article. It is saying 5% of it spending is on cloud. That has nothing to do with the percentage of cloud vs self hosting.
It could be 5% of it spending but account for 100% of hosting.
>Why does Parlor need to be an app at all? They can just be a website
Because it makes it easier for people to interact with and can encourage engagement. There is a reason why every social media site has an app.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
I work at AWS in Professional Services where we are pushed to go after the other 95%. I watch the ReInvent videos. He is very much talking about growing by going after the other 95%.
I know first hand how many large enterprises and state and local government institutions are self hosted.
In context, he is obviously talking about AWS’s growth potential by going after a large untapped market.
As far as “needing an app”. Do you really think the same people who will show up by the thousands to watch Trump and go through the trouble of invading the Capital won’t go out of their way to go to a website and post their opinions?
_-david-_ 372 days ago [-]
>I work at AWS in Professional Services where we are pushed to go after the other 95%.
It wasn't stated in the article that 95% of hosting is self hosted. I would appreciate some article or something that actually makes that claim.
>I watch the ReInvent videos. He is very much talking about growing by going after the other 95%.
I haven't watch those videos, but if it just reiterates the article then it won't prove your point. 5% of costs has nothing to do with market share.
Continuing to say 5% is useless when it almost certainly doesn't mean what you are claiming.
>I know first hand how many large enterprises and state and local government institutions are self hosted
Has nothing to do with the percentage of hosting.
>As far as “needing an app”. Do you really think the same people who will show up by the thousands to watch Trump and go through the trouble of invading the Capital won’t go out of their way to go to a website and post their opinions?
A growing number of people don't even have a computer. They only have a phone. It is difficult to deal with many sites on phones. Not sure how good Parler is, but they are frequently a subpar experience like notifications not even working most of the time.
I'd you want engagement you need an app. Its as simple as that. That is why every social media has its own app instead of directing people to their websites.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
Twitter and Facebook both have websites that are both easy to deal with on the phone.
> Twitter and Facebook both have websites that are both easy to deal with on the phone.
I am not saying that you need to have an app to succeed, only that succeeding without one will be difficult and lead to a higher likelihood of failing.
If apps are a waste and don't provide any use to people then why do these companies waste their time and money making an app? Why do users often times use the apps?
>Global IT spend is 4.5T.
> AWS percentage of that spend is infinitesimal.
Literally has nothing to do with anything.
I don't think you understand what I am saying despite repeating myself multiple times.
The percentage of spending going to X doesn't let you figure out the market share of X. Even if it could, which it can't, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
I am not even talking about data centers. You brought it up and couldn't even provide the accurate figure for market share. Spending on IT has nothing to do with market share.
scarface74 371 days ago [-]
If global IT spend is 4.5T, and AWS revenues is around 50B (don’t quote me I’m too lazy to look it up) and AWS has the largest market share of cloud. That implies that most companies aren’t using cloud and there is no monopoly. Anyone can put a website up, find a colo center to serve traffic somewhere and reach anyone. No one is just randomly blocking websites in the US and Android and now iOS support web push notifications on mobile
_-david-_ 371 days ago [-]
Please just stop. There is more to IT spending than hosting costs. Salaries are often times a huge cost. You clearly don't understand that and are wasting my time.
The market share for cloud is many times more than 5% or whatever you were claiming.
edgyquant 373 days ago [-]
I’m a liberal but we’re reaching a point where this argument isn’t exactly truthful
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
You being a liberal actual trust the government with more power?
b800h 373 days ago [-]
I think there's a potential argument against this.
1. Network effects mean that there's only space for one platform in a particular niche.
2. There are reports (are they reliable?) that people who are more left wing are more habitually online and post much more.
If the above two are true, then left-wing social networks will naturally dominate.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
There is only space for one platform, yet there are plenty of platforms for discourse. Are you really arguing that for instance Trump or Foxnews don’t have the following to start an alternate social media?
As far as #2, why should tgat be an argument for the government to be involved?
373 days ago [-]
b800h 373 days ago [-]
Well I'm hedging my bets. If it really is true that the market in a particular area (microblogging for instance) can only be dominated by a single company, and also that left-wing users are more active, then absolutely, I'm arguing that Fox would be unable to maintain a successful rival to Twitter.
As far as #2 is concerned, well I don't know if it is an argument for the government to become involved, but if something is driving huge divisions in society which are arguably destabilising the country (again, this is arguably wrong) then should the government not intervene? I'm European by the way, so my philosophical priors might be different to those of an American.
It's not as though government doesn't regulated other human behaviours which cause damage if left unregulated. Drink driving, for example.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
I actually have my own “micro blog” at wait for it “micro.blog” (https://digitalnomadder.micro.blog/about/) It’s more of a journaling thing. But I’m sure if I had the reach of many of the conservatives I could make a healthy living by monetizing it (not interested) or at least getting my own views out there.
I’ve made the offer plenty of times, I would gladly overcharge any conservative to lead the creation of a social media site that could stand up to the likely traffic. It would be like the atheist who got rich selling a mobile Bible app.
If I couldn’t lead the charge, I need to give up my $DayJob.
1270018080 373 days ago [-]
I can't think of any left wing social networks. Have any ever existed?
int_19h 372 days ago [-]
I don't care if conservatives are hypocrites on this. What really matters is that if they can get steamrolled by private actors operating as a censorship cartel, then so can everyone else.
rayiner 373 days ago [-]
The first amendment case law recognizes that protection for political speech is the very core of the First Amendment. It’s the whole point.
Indeed, prior to the mid-20th century, it was understood that other kinds of expressive speech (pornography, etc.) did not receive as much, if any, protection.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
First Amendment case law involves the government. If the government of Florida wants a free for all social media platform, it can create one. If they don’t have the technical aptitude, I’ll gladly accept a multi million dollar contract to lead the creation of one. Leading the development of large scale infrastructure and back end development is kind of mg thing.
seadan83 373 days ago [-]
100% this. The 1st amendment protects free speech from the government. If you're in a bar, and they don't like what you're saying, they can ask you to leave. Then it all boils down to whether things like Twitter and Facebook are akin to the public square, a public street. That is hard to fathom given you are using their servers, their software, which they pay for and provide as a service (in something of a quid-pro-quo since they advertise to you, but that is beside the point). If the government were paying the bill for the servers, as something as a free fully scaled hosting service - then maybe services operating on those platforms could be considered public (yet the software seems like it still would be proprietary). So, seemingly it would need to be a free and fully government run Twitter clone to then have first amendment protections kick in.
trafficante 373 days ago [-]
This argument, much like the “just make your own x” meme, is one of the many hypotheticals that actually saw real world testing in the past two years.
These days, the ”private company so this isn’t 1A” argument oddly reminds me of the omnipresent 200x-era GOP claim that running a federal budget is akin to balancing a household checkbook. Designed to be convincingly simple to state and yet extremely obnoxious to refute to a layperson.
Facebook in particular probably wouldn’t even exist without backing from DARPA, the “defunct” TIA program, and a host of other spooky agencies, corporations, and individuals (Palantir and Thiel for instance).
Skip over 18 years of also-damning stuff to when the public/private mask started to blatantly slip in 2020: Since then, we’ve had multiple leaks, whistleblowers, etc demonstrating overt collaboration between the government and social media companies to censor, ban, and shape narratives.
Not a lawyer, don’t know how you’d frame a 1A lawsuit, but it is absolutely unacceptable that our digital public square is being operated by companies that clearly serve as “Bill of Rights Avoidance” shell corporations for the intelligence agencies and now the Executive Branch writ large.
It’s like everyone forgot about Snowden. This sort of highly suspicious take should be everyone’s default position at this point, particularly in tech.
And no, you absolutely cannot “just build your own Project Lifelog if you don’t like it”.
seadan83 373 days ago [-]
I don't know if I'm saying, just "build your own if you don't like it". More, if you don't like it, don't use it (eg: if you don't like Arby's, don't go there). Though, I do concede that these platforms/apps/companies are very monopoly-like and that certainly creates its own gravitational pull and challenges to competitors.
Do you have any references for further information about how the government supported Facebook? If Facebook received some support from the government, does that make their platform a public square? What would that threshold be?
I'm really suggesting that "open to the public" does not mean "public". Hence, while anyone can sign on to 'Facebook', the nature that they pay for their servers, to develop software, have a business model, etc.. does not make it a public square even if it might feel like that at times (it's a private corporation, which means nobody has a first amendment right to do whatever they want with that software - there actually is no freedom of expression in the US, just freedom from government persecution to express what you want - that is what is written in the constitution)
trafficante 372 days ago [-]
Can’t reply to your latest so piggybacking here to add a note that searching for info on this stuff will surface a whole mess of recent Q Anon style sites if you don’t carefully craft your search queries.
Most mainstream coverage on domestic intelligence overreach is from the 2005-2012 era; there’s almost a tangible brick wall in the middle of the Obama years where mainstream coverage of this sort of thing switches from being critical-by-default to being just shy of a press release (a good example is the SAFE HOME link in my other comment).
trafficante 373 days ago [-]
>Do you have any references for further information about how the government supported Facebook? If Facebook received some support from the government, does that make their platform a public square? What would that threshold be?
Some of what I mentioned is covered in a very roundabout way in this Vice article [1] while the Palantir/Thiel connections (as well as info on early FB executives being “former” CIA employees/contractors) is on FB’s Wikipedia page. There’s a decent NYT write up from ~2010 on some of the DARPA connections but I’m having a hell of a time finding it right now.
As far as I know, there’s less of a smoking gun so much as there’s a series of very big dots that are hard NOT to connect to the intelligence agencies. You can search up some of the stuff below and draw your own conclusions. Much like with PRISM etc, where security researchers weren’t exactly surprised at the content of the Snowden leaks, the alphabet agency connections to SV are pretty apparent but we’ll never see documented proof without another Ed Snowden.
Eg: DARPA’s Total Information Awareness program was established post-9/11 with the stated goal of creating a total digital panopticon. It was officially canceled due to public outcry. That said, several of its programs have popped back up over the years and many analysts believe it was just broken up into classified chunks - SAFE HOME [2] being one of the more recent and obvious examples of an old TIA project resurfacing.
Lifelog was another TIA project that was essentially “Facebook’s social graph but with satellite tracking and bio surveillance for added creepiness”. It was shutdown one day before Facebook launched [3].
Basically there’s a whole lot of very odd circumstantial evidence (usually the only kind of evidence you can get regarding active intelligence programs) that heavily suggests a link between early FB and DARPA/CIA. It’s very similar to Palantir and suggests that the main outcome of the negative public response to TIA was to push it underground and into “private” hands. It absolutely glows in the dark (RIP Terry) and should be subject to the same rules and Constitutional restrictions as the agencies that aided its birth and certainly still play a huge internal role to this very day.
Thank you for following up with links - I'll check them out!
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
Is the answer giving government more power?
Conservatives love “the free market” and “small government” when it suits them. These are the same politicians who are opposed to net neutrality. It’s much easier to create an alternative social media platform than create an alternative ISP.
rayiner 373 days ago [-]
But is Facebook like a bar? Or is it a pipe for user generated content?
seadan83 372 days ago [-]
One other thought I had regarding this - how about sites like 'github'? It's not that much different to be able to create a public repositories with blog-like content. Is github a pipe? If github were a pipe, then they couldn't moderate illegal content based on the point of view that "all software should be free" or the point of view that "viruses are useful and necessary to find and exploit security holes, otherwise those security holes do not get found nor fixed." Both of those points of view are, points of view (perhaps with some flaws, but nonetheless, they are points of view). Then.. if github were forced to host almost whatever content, they seemingly could become another 'pirate-bay'.
I suspect the 'is it a pipe' or 'is it a bar' question is perhaps easier to look at via 'proof-by-contradiction' when examining other large websites and services that are not so dissimilar.
Another thought, what if a private company wanted to not be a pipe, or what if they actually wanted to be a pipe. Let's say someone had a product launch that was intended and was for all purposes a pipe - though they "couldn't" be because of a user requirement. That seems odd, seems like whether you are a 'pipe' or a 'bar' could be stated in a prospectus and would not need to be a function at all of user count (but instead a function of services provided and how they are provided). In another example, a new phone carrier, just because they are small, would still be a pipe.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
So is HN. Are you comfortable with the government telling HN that it can’t ban overly political content?
seadan83 373 days ago [-]
I think the definition for a 'pipe' is a bit ambiguous. With a solid definition we could then test its criteria against how Facebook operates.
IMHO, Facebook is like the bulletin board in a bar. A pipe would likely treat all content equally, Facebook does not do that, and I don't think there is an expectation that they would. If Facebook were a pipe, then there would be no recourse to moderate anything. Ergo it could be chock full of illegal content & porn, and if it were a pipe - nobody could complain to Facebook about the 'bad' stuff that is getting posted. Hence, seemingly they can moderate user-generated content pretty much however they please, it's their bulletin board. Further, if Facebook were a pipe, it could easily get flooded by several hundred/thousand payed trolls to post an overwhelming amount of content that Facebook could do nothing but allow to drown out everything else. Seemingly government telling Facebook they couldn't do (or how to do) moderation could put Facebook out of business (it could just wind up being crap/porn/spam)
I think the bulletin board analogy within a private space is likely a good analogy. The theme of the board is supposed to be posting for your friends by friends. I think it's within Facebooks right to then keep to that theme. The alternative is that they cannot in which case the users could utterly hijack the content within Facebook, and seemingly government regulation at that point would be preventing them from operating how they want (a seemingly very Ayn Rand like situation)
rayiner 373 days ago [-]
That’s an orthogonal point. The “speech” that the first amendment is primarily concerned about is political speech. That’s the code of the first amendment protection.
The first amendment by its terms applies to the government. But that doesn’t mean that states can’t provide similar protections from the conduct of private parties.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
So why stop at social media? Why shouldn’t the state control every website that allows comments including advocacy groups, religious groups etc?
rayiner 373 days ago [-]
Because different things are different? We have different rules for say public restaurants versus private clubs?
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
In that case, what makes HN different from Facebook? Should HN not be able to ban overly political posts? Why can’t Facebook claim to be a private club that you have to join?
rayiner 373 days ago [-]
HN seems like the archetype of an interest-specific club as compared to Facebook’s generic content platform.
tptacek 371 days ago [-]
How so? It's much easier to create an HN account and post than it is to create a Facebook account.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
So now we do carve outs based on places we don’t want the government to intervene? So are Subreddits “interest clubs “?
Why not just keep the government out of regulating private company’s content? Aren’t conservatives all about “small government”?
nonethewiser 373 days ago [-]
The law applies to social media sights with > 100,000 monthly active users.
pGuitar 373 days ago [-]
Motivations don't matter... this is what needs to happen.
edgyquant 373 days ago [-]
Maybe but I think it’s the right direction. These are not apps they are communications protocols owned by rent seekers
protomyth 373 days ago [-]
Welcome to the natural consequence of social networks becoming important to just do daily business. The phone companies, and other utilities, operate under strict rules. I do wonder how many and type of companies will become internet utilities?
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
99.5% of Americans could never log into Facebook, Twitter or anything ever again with no substantial impact on their daily lives. The remaining 0.5% have careers centered around social media and should probably find a real job.
Honest to goodness, the hyperventilation about how "important" social media is just amazes me.
anon291 373 days ago [-]
This is not true. You need a Facebook account to interact with a lot of businesses.
Many businesses don't have normal websites for better or worse.
Many government agencies announce things through Twitter and Facebook for better or worse (worse in my opinion).
gamacodre 373 days ago [-]
And yet, with no functioning Facebook or Twitter account, I seem to have no problem finding businesses that sell the things I'm interested in. Most local issues of actual importance are still mentioned in the newspaper.
Facebook could get their databases and backups wiped tomorrow and I'm pretty sure nothing would substantively change in my life or my work (and I work in tech). Same goes for Twitter. I might be exposed to less second-hand stupidity on an average day.
I see lots of hand-wringing about them being somehow equivalent to power plants or water districts, but to me it seems like a tortuous justification for "make them act how I want them to act".
anon291 373 days ago [-]
I don't have a facebook or twitter account either, but it's not totally frictionless. My wife still has one to join some neighborhood groups and follow some local businesses.
deathanatos 373 days ago [-]
I've been logged out of Facebook for like 10 years, and in that time, I've not once needed my FB account to interact with a business.
> Many government agencies announce things through Twitter and Facebook for better or worse
Twitter seems to be the more common of the two there. They should not do that.
mr_toad 373 days ago [-]
You don’t need a Twitter account to read Twitter post anyway. You can open the page incognito mode and sterilise it when done.
anon291 373 days ago [-]
On mobile, it keeps making me log in.
smaryjerry 373 days ago [-]
And 100% of people could live without phone companies with no impact to their daily lives, we’ve got internet right? Of course I would be the one defining impact here. You may consider impact to daily lives not substantial, but others see the substantial impact of not being able to reach their family, friends, and customers and the disadvantage that comes with others having that access but you not. It’s not like Facebook actually is making the “social media” you see in your feed, it is 100% carrying social media from users, the same way a phone company aren’t the one making calls.
colinmhayes 373 days ago [-]
No, my job requires me to have internet while travelling. That means phone companies. It could be solved, but would have a huge impact on my life.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
Are you really comparing the level of effort of setting a phone company to creating a social media platform or a website to get your ideas out there?
smaryjerry 373 days ago [-]
Exactly. There is much lower hanging fruit but if you ask someone what is more valuable to their business, phone service or social media, many would choose social media.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
So these same companies are complaining that it is harder to target people because Apple has instituted the ability for people to say no to targeting. Should the government come in there? Would Truth Social like the Biden administration coming in and telling them what they can post?
smaryjerry 372 days ago [-]
I don’t think that is a common carrier issue. I’m just saying the impact of bans from social media companies, often coordinated among several at once, are more impactful than other companies already listed as common carriers. It’s not like social media is created by these companies, every piece of content shown on the websites was user created and the users deserve protection from malicious and biased actors within the companies.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
Do I also deserve “protection” when RedState has banned me twice for not carrying the party line? Do you think Truth Social would welcome my opinions with open arms?
smaryjerry 371 days ago [-]
I don’t know what red state is, a social media company?I am referring to places where none of the content produced is made by the owner. Places where all content is user created.
scarface74 371 days ago [-]
RedState is a conservative website that allows comments. I was banned because I didn’t toe the line. Do you think they would have been okay with the Biden administration saying I must be allowed to comment.
smaryjerry 370 days ago [-]
That’s obviously not what I am talking about, I said multiple times places that are 100% user generated content.
paxys 373 days ago [-]
> becoming important to just do daily business
How is any social network today important for daily business? You can live a perfectly normal life after deleting every single one of them, and so many people have done exactly that. Facebook is not equivalent to electricity or running water.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
The phone companies and utilities are natural monopolies. Creating a social media platform isn’t. Doesn’t every senior developer interview at a BigTech company involve a question “how would you design Twitter?”.
bell-cot 373 days ago [-]
IANAL, and have not read Florida's law, but it sounds ripe for abuse by trolls:
1 - Become a political candidate (even if a write-in for some bottom-end office in a tiny municipality)
2 - Register with social networks as a Florida-protected candidate
3 - Spend all your time spewing hate at people you don't like. Maybe automate that, to get both far more spewing and far more free time.
8note 373 days ago [-]
Or 3. Spend all your time advertising for whichever business pays you the most
danaris 373 days ago [-]
...and this is where the difference between law and code kicks in, as the social networks ban you, and when you sue under this law, the courts say, "but everyone knows they only meant real political candidates; you know, from one of the two parties that can actually win elections".
bell-cot 373 days ago [-]
You might want to look into how easy it can be to become a real "major party" candidate, for a minor office, in a small municipality. Especially if "your" major party is the "no hope" party in a dyed-in-wool municipality, or you're just a primary candidate. Or the party understands that you'll mostly be spewing hate at people they hate.
And if the social networks are forced to follow this Florida law, and Mr. A. Troll De Vile was spewing hate at the politicians behind the law...might some social networks feel "deepest frustration" that they were, alas, legally barred from banning Mr. De Vile?
pwinnski 373 days ago [-]
Hi from Texas, where real-life candidates belonging to one of the two major political parties spew open hate and then win office.
starik36 373 days ago [-]
As long as the speech is protected under the 1st amendment, it is irrelevant what they are "spewing".
buildbot 373 days ago [-]
I’ll ask the same question I asked on the other threads to all those cheering this - do you think HN will be the same without moderation? Or just another 4chan? Will r/conservative stop banning users who dare suggest trump was maybe not such a good person, even if they are otherwise extremely conservative?
klyrs 373 days ago [-]
If HN and other forums are doomed to become 4chan, it would probably be a net positive in my life. I waste too much time here.
brobinson 373 days ago [-]
Why do people associate 4chan with not having moderation? It's always had moderators ("jannies"), and they are a common target of disdain.
/g/ is far more entertaining than HN.
buildbot 373 days ago [-]
I would say it is less moderated, but to be frank I really don’t have any data and I don’t spend time there.
honkdaddy 373 days ago [-]
4chan is as or more heavily moderated than most of reddit, I'm not sure where you get the idea it's not. 4chan culture is the way it is largely because of the demographic of its users, it doesn't really much to do with its moderation policies.
fzeroracer 373 days ago [-]
It should be incredibly obvious to just about anyone that this sort of law is untenable and would just lead to social media companies either completely banning anyone from Florida from posting on their platform or putting them into their own special space completely separated from the rest of the world.
Someone in Florida will issue a terrorism threat that goes afoul of European laws or something and social media platforms will sooner side with the rest of the world than Florida. And how is Florida going to have any standing to try and sue a company in compliance that does not operate in or offer service to Florida?
It's the same as what's going down in Texas. Never mind that as another commentator mentioned these same state governments are also busy burning books and censoring other individuals so it's not a matter of equal freedom. They want the ability to threaten minorities.
Kerbonut 373 days ago [-]
I agree and we should classify the underlying Internet service providers, that social media providers depends on, as common carriers as well!
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
That's where the cognitive dissonance here kicks in: the case for ISPs to be common-carriers looks much stronger (from any principled perspective) than does the case for social media networks.
And yet, because this is a party-political issue, you have the Republican Party swearing up and down that ISPs are not (presumably because common-carrier status implies net neutrality and this is unpopular with donors or something?) but that social networks are (because they exhibit "bias").
anon291 373 days ago [-]
I think you'll find that if you talk with technically literate Republicans you'll find a lot of support for net neutrality.
Unfortunately, my party's base is made up of people who are not super into tech unlike the Democratic party whose base is increasingly rich tech workers.
On the other hand, my fellow Republicans do jobs you may think unimportant,like farming, plumbing, construction, etc.
Perhaps, when you think about it, democrat regulations of these professions are equally ridiculous when you look at it from the perspective of someone in these professions.
Half our political discord would be solved if we just thought of ourselves in the other person's shoes and listened instead of chocking it up to stupidity or malice.
Half of my conservative friends have no idea how the internet works. They don't understand the wires behind it. When you explain to them what's going on, they become more sympathetic to net neutrality. Perhaps try explaining instead of dismissing?
colinmhayes 373 days ago [-]
> jobs you may think unimportant,like farming, plumbing, construction,
> Perhaps try explaining instead of dismissing?
anon291 373 days ago [-]
I've not dismissed his core concern about lack of net neutrality. In fact, i agree with him and encouraging him to not give up..
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
I'm not at all speaking about Republican voters; I'm talking about Republican politicians; sorry I didn't make that clear.
Meekro 373 days ago [-]
I agree that we should have both ISPs and major social networks as common carriers. Based on talking with Republican friends, I think the difference is that social networks are well-known censors. If Xfinity was known to censor as aggressively as Twitter and Facebook do, they would also be in favor of common carrier rules for them. But as it is, they're content to leave well enough alone.
layer8 373 days ago [-]
Also services like Cloudflare, and email providers like GMail.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
How is an email server a common carrier? People have been setting up email servers for decades and there are plenty of alternatives.
layer8 373 days ago [-]
It is a common carrier by virtue of hosting many of the recipients you want to send email to.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
That’s not what common Cartier means. If I set up my own mail server does it become a common carrier?
layer8 373 days ago [-]
If you host the email of as many people as GMail, I'd say yes.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
So let’s regulate all major email providers. Are you okay with giving the government that much power?
layer8 373 days ago [-]
Yes, I'd be perfectly okay with that. Email is a general utility.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
So if you set up a mail server should the government also be able to dictate what you do with it?
case0x00 373 days ago [-]
I agree, unless the alternative is to break apart the monopolies which I think is better.
elil17 373 days ago [-]
It's unclear to me that email and CDNs are the kinds of natural monopolies that need to be regulated as common carriers
layer8 373 days ago [-]
Look what happened to Kiwi Farms, and what happens to people who try to host their own outgoing SMTP server.
elil17 373 days ago [-]
Something requiring decent scale is totally different than being a natural monopoly. There were plenty of DDoS protection options on the market. I can't grow my own wheat, build my own car, or DDoS protect my own website - these all require economies of scale. But they aren't natural monopolies, there's plenty of competition in each space. On the other hand, internet is a natural monopoly because the capital costs are so high and are relatively inelastic with the number of users served.
cowtools 373 days ago [-]
>Something requiring decent scale is totally different than being a natural monopoly. There were plenty of DDoS protection options on the market.
Is it? There were a few DDoS protection services on the market, but they seemingly all dropped KF, so what then? Is that not analogous to kicked out by every ISP?
>I can't grow my own wheat, build my own car [...] - these all require economies of scale. But they aren't natural monopolies, there's plenty of competition in each space. On the other hand, internet is a natural monopoly because the capital costs are so high and are relatively inelastic with the number of users served.
You probably can grow your own wheat or build your own car. But I like your definition of monopoly.
I would say that more generally, that a monopoly is any business that has insufficient competition to motivate them from abusing their stakeholders (including customers, workers, etc.).
pwinnski 373 days ago [-]
Kiwi Farms is offline not because CloudFlare refuses to do business with them, but because everybody collectively refuses to do business with them. Otherwise they could just have gone to a competitor.
One can still find what happened to them chilling, but that doesn't make CloudFlare a "common carrier."
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
What happened to Kiwi Farms was that no-one wanted to do business with them from a risk-management and just general good-moral-fiber basis.
nobody9999 373 days ago [-]
>What happened to Kiwi Farms was that no-one wanted to do business with them from a risk-management and just general good-moral-fiber basis.
While it's a somewhat different example and a bit reductive, I find this XKCD[0] to be relevant to the issues with Kiwi Farms.
I run several websites on my physical hardware and through the internet links for which I pay. I don't want (and won't allow) any speech on my private property that I don't wish to host or amplify.
If the government (as Florida's appears to wish to do) tries to tell me what content I must (or must not) publish (assuming it's protected speech under the First Amendment), not only won't I comply, I will scream bloody murder -- as it's a direct violation of the First Amendment -- because the government is involved.
What is it that strips other non-governmental entities of those same rights? Absolutely nothing.
Do I like much of the nastiness, trolling and disinformation that's out there? Nope. Which is another good reason (I abandoned the big "social media" companies nearly a decade ago because I objected to their business models) not to use the big "social media" players.
And whether you agree or disagree with those who do use such platforms, it's their choice to use them or not. Just as it's those (and every) platforms' right to host or not host any particular speech/expression.
I don't understand why technical folks don't understand this. If the government can force you to host speech you don't want to host on your own private property, then property rights are irrelevant.
As for the whole "common carrier" thing in relation to the big "social media" platforms, they don't have exclusive access to rights-of-way (e.g., last mile conduit for wired internet access, ownership of the cell towers, etc.). Setting up your own site is simple and cheap/free.
You have the right to free expression. You do not have a right to an audience.
If the big "social media" platforms (and/or platforms like Cloudflare, AWS, etc.) pull a 1357[0] on you, you do have recourse. Do it yourself. This isn't a complicated thing to understand, IMHO.
I'll say it again because I want to make it clear: I abandoned all the big "Social Media" platforms nearly a decade ago and find their practices and business models to be deeply offensive. What's more, I don't use Cloudflare or AWS or any other similar platforms.
So no, I'm not defending those corporations. At all. Rather, I'm defending the ideals of free expression.
The problem is that there are only a handful companies to do business with in the first place.
I think what you would expect in a sane market is that they are forced to negotiate a more expensive deal with the remaining service providers due to the supply/demand imbalance.
As there are so few service providers here, there's only a few levels of risk-tolerance/good-moral-fiber that you can negotiate on. Activists only need to push a site above the highest risk-tolerance level (which is unnaturally low due to this quantization)
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
I mean, yes and no. If you're loathsome enough, the asking price is going to be non-commercial for you, even in a perfect and infinitely deep market of providers.
viridian 372 days ago [-]
I disagree, especially in the case of email, as someone who has done the onerous work of running a mail server. You are at a huge market disadvantage, both as a provider, and as a client, if you are not on gmail. Google preferences gmail hosted domains when it comes to spam filtering for email, and it makes a big difference as to whether or not an email can actually land in your inbox.
The way things are now, I can't ever in good conscious recommend any small or medium sized business own any part of the email infrastructure except the MX record, I've simply seen too many cases of the financial damage caused by not using gmail as a host.
Requiring all hosts to operate on a single, fair, well defined standard would be to the benefit of the people of the United States.
vkou 373 days ago [-]
Also television channels and libraries. They are as much of a common carrier as a website is.
Which is to say, they are not at all.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
Broadcast TV only exists because they license the public airwaves and the spectrum they use is of limited supply and is again a natural monopoly. Cable TV networks have no such restrictions.
systemvoltage 373 days ago [-]
Cloudflare is the last place I'd imagine it'd get political. Recent revelations were nothing short of shocking. Cloudflare is supposed to be strictly proxy and firewall, yet, they're bending over to a tiny group of activists.
SV corporations are spineless.
Buttons840 373 days ago [-]
They're doing it at the wrong layer. Make the internet a common carrier and maybe regulate AWS (etc) to ensure everyone can host their own websites somewhere.
How can social media be a common carrier when it cannot be accessed through a common carrier?
It feels like we're fighting to have our one sentence displayed among the ads, while giving up the ability to create our own webpages and platforms.
krapp 373 days ago [-]
>Make the internet a common carrier and maybe regulate AWS (etc) to ensure everyone can host their own websites somewhere
Everyone already can host their own websites somewhere, AWS isn't even required.
andrew_ 373 days ago [-]
That's a great angle, hasn't thought about it like that. I'm not sure it solves the "stack" problem that alternatives would face. Would that go so far as to regulate payment processors that are accepting and handling payments via internet?
Mattasher 373 days ago [-]
At this point we need to recognize that these "private companies" are now de facto state actors. They take censorship advice from government agencies (like the CDC), ban certain people in response to political pressures, and hand over user's private data without a warrant.
That doesn't mean regulating them like common carries is good or workable, but we need to start by recognizing that there are first amendment claims on both sides now.
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
Sorry, where are the First Amendment issues with allowing social media networks to censor whatever they want?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Let's please not make the mistake of saying all issues that relate to freedom of speech are First Amendment issues.
kcplate 373 days ago [-]
> Let's please not make the mistake of saying all issues that relate to freedom of speech are First Amendment issues.
The problem is when government and social media actively collude to side step the government’s responsibility to the first amendment…the government has dragged the social media companies into first amendment territory.
You have two ways of handling this: one…have the government police itself…which it won’t do, because it is already actively trying to find ways around its responsibility to freedom of speech; Or two, start lawsuits that expose the collusion and start making it expensive for social media companies to collude with the government to censor.
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
>The problem is when government and social media actively collude to side step the government’s responsibility to the first amendment
The government's responsibility to the First Amendment is "don't make laws that limit freedom of religion, speech or assembly". I don't know what it means for government to collude with a third party to side-step that responsibility.
chrismcb 373 days ago [-]
The wording if the Constitution is about making a law. But it has become accepted that it means the government shouldn't have a say in it. And you, as a free citizen, shouldn't want them to.
kcplate 373 days ago [-]
Ahh so you think it’s ok for the government to encourage the censorship of speech it doesn’t like by companies it is actively investigating (threatening)…as long as they don’t make a law to that effect?
aNoob7000 373 days ago [-]
The problem is finding the right balance between free speech and censorship.
I look forward to see how cases that go to the Supreme Court are going to be handled. I personally believe that a private business like Facebook has the right to control content on their app/website.
klyrs 373 days ago [-]
The Supreme Court is little more than a chapter of the Federalist Society right now. Even Roberts cannot moderate them.
chrismcb 373 days ago [-]
My personal opinion is once they start censoring, then they are responsible for everything on their site. I think it is ok to let people moderate. But once the company starts to censor then it implies they are ok with what they didn't censor. This is not what Facebook wants. They want to censor and not be responsible. They can't have it both ways
dijonman2 373 days ago [-]
No amount of censorship is acceptable, IMO.
amanaplanacanal 373 days ago [-]
Unfortunately, without censorship, the spammers take over. Maybe this is what will finally kill Facebook and Twitter.
throwaway4220 373 days ago [-]
So if you say the sky is green, and NASA says "That's wrong", you call that censorship?
radford-neal 373 days ago [-]
If someone writes a post saying the sky is green, NASA says "that's wrong", and then goes on to say that if the social media platform doesn't remove the post saying the sky is green, NASA will forbid the platform from sending any messages using communication satellites, then yes, that is censorship.
Of course, they're unlikely to behave so blatantly, at least initially. They're more likely to just sort of hint at how anti-trust prosecutions might be started or not depending on whether the platform follows the government's "advice".
373 days ago [-]
fallenasleep 373 days ago [-]
the big ones are also global companies who operate in many countries (and cooperate with many countries' law enforcement).
For me, the better metaphor is to think of them as virtual governments of virtual territories
Mattasher 373 days ago [-]
This seems like a better analogy than "private companies", but then where does that lead you in terms of how they should be treated? No snark here, genuine question.
jmull 373 days ago [-]
It would be pretty funny, in a terrible way, if the First Amendment was gutted in the name of free speech.
I'm somewhat amazed at how poorly the people in favor of this understand what appeal these social networks was to let them grow large in the first place.
Isn't it obvious that it wasn't by letting everyone post anything? We've had that all along. No need to force social networks to do what has already always been an option (go ahead and start that personal blog and post all your thoughts on it).
But of course, that's not what the politicians mean. They use the words "common carrier" to make it sound like they aren't doing what they are actually doing: attempting to force social media companies to be megaphones for the political messages of the politicians.
De facto state media. The very opposite of free speech and the first amendment.
It would be laughable if the Supreme Court was principled.
bergenty 373 days ago [-]
While actively campaigning against any form of net neutrality which is the layer on which this argument should be made. The GOP are transparent, politically pukeworthy cretins at this point. Just thinking about them makes me want to spit.
ladyattis 372 days ago [-]
These laws just make no sense to me. First, a website is a website is a website. Whether it's Google, Facebook, or your granny's knitting blog. You can't just say because one website has X features of interaction and Y number of unique users that it must be handled differently than others as it makes the delineation arbitrary and flimsy. There has to be a basis to say Facebook must be given extra supervision by the state that makes it clear that Facebook is not alone in its own functionality. If Facebook were made the special case then it leads to making convoluted laws that are hard to decide on.
Second, as some have already said, this is the wrong level of the Internet to manage such a concept of common carrier. Facebook isn't in the business of actually routing data between two points on the internet. Facebook handles internal data on its own internal networks that connect up to the core of the internet which then that core connects to all the edge networks (consumer facing ISPs). This approach is better as it means there's no arbitrary singling out of one provider over another (Comcast vs some random rural co-op) due to political climate. Everyone gets the same process, everyone has the same burden or benefit.
Third, this is all political theater in an age that frankly doesn't really make sense to me. How is this exactly going to get the core voters of Republicans out to the ballot box? I just see this as over the top nonsense.
Helmut10001 373 days ago [-]
I would say it is not possible to change social networks at this stage, they need to be replaced with something new. What this could be? Maybe the Matrix protocol [1], already connecting 40 Million users worldwide. There are various tools that use the Protocol already in a web-context, e.g. Cactus Comments [2] or the Matrix cerulean test [3]. Maybe something else.
Basically, once a social network surpasses say, 20M users, it becomes a defacto political entity, with the power to move elections. Given this immense power, the government should regulate accordingly.
Instead of passing detailed regulations though, I am of the opinion that if a company passes 200B USD in enterprise value, that Congress should get the right to appoint 50% of the board of directors. This way, the company's responsibilities match its defacto political power to sway elections.
Basically, make Facebook into an Amtrak or USPS. If Facebook does not like this idea, then they can split the company into pieces.
Additional benefit: this functions also as anti-trust regulation. Amazon would be subject to this as well.
caf 373 days ago [-]
So your solution to the worry that large social networks have the power to move elections, is to put that power in the hands of the people with the most incentive to move elections?
favflam 373 days ago [-]
Better Congress that operates under the US constitutions and bi-annual elections than shareholders, no?
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I am wrong. You are saying that shareholders ought to hold this immense power that say Facebook has to move elections?
caf 373 days ago [-]
You are saying that shareholders ought to hold this immense power that say Facebook has to move elections?
Certainly, if the alternative is that those in government get to wield it instead. I would wager I've considerably more trust in government and politicians than average - I do believe that in the main they're working very hard for what they perceive to be the greater good - but I draw the line at the politicians getting to directly control the political media.
Part of this is that I don't think Facebook's power alone is "immense" - but if you had all of the large media centrally controlled then you'd be getting there.
The very idea completely compromises those "bi-annual elections". How can you effectively challenge the state when all the large media is state-controlled?
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
You mean the same government where Montana has just as many Senators as California and the person who won the popular vote in 2016 lost the Presidential election?
chrismcb 373 days ago [-]
You can't compare the two. They didn't run a campaign to win the popular vote. The outcome night have been different if they had
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
And the fact that the US is not a representative democracy and the small states have much more representation in government than their population should allow?
epakai 373 days ago [-]
Not sure about this particular solution, but I really think antitrust is where it's at. Big companies should do big things, not collect many little things under their umbrella. If you're going to do big things (or even big collections of little things) then be regulated because your outcomes affect so many others.
I don't think antitrust does much to Twitter. So that reduces its popularity as a solution among politicians. I feel like politicians ceded their power to Twitter. So I write it off as 'you made your bed, now lie in it'.
kweingar 373 days ago [-]
Why stop at the board? Why not have the government actually buy half of the company?
Then the government can profit as well, like a sovereign wealth fund
favflam 373 days ago [-]
My suggestions and implication of the suggestion is that companies will split themselves before they reach this level. Anti trust if you will.
If no anti trust, then become a federal agency.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
You realize that there was just another story on HN where the government pushed BigTech to censor information around Covid? This is the same government you want to give more power?
Do you really think that the in power government won’t push corporations to keep them in power?
It amazes me that people want to give the government this much power.
biglearner1day 373 days ago [-]
> It amazes me that people want to give the government this much power.
It amazes me that we let social media platforms run freely with whichever narrative, ideology they enforce. Government influence has in most cases a negative outcome, but letting these platforms, especially ones at the scale of Twitter and Facebook, act freely is unwise.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
So instead we give government more power to control the narrative? Im sure the religious right would love to control the narrative.
Would you also want the government to control RedState? FoxNews? Truth Socisl?
biglearner1day 373 days ago [-]
I was not disagreeing with you in the initial reply, two things can be true at the same time.
Like I said; government influence has a negative outcome in most cases, but allowing social media platforms to do as they wish is a recipe for disaster if we're not there already.
> Im sure the religious right would love to control the narrative
I'm sure the ideological left appreciates the social media platform's bias towards their progressive ideology. It's equally wrong if they had a different bias. You, we, need to stop being divisive, it's toxic.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
So no matter how bad you believe private corporations are at controlling the narrative. Do you think having government control is better?
biglearner1day 372 days ago [-]
Please don't pull a Cathy Newman.
Like I said, for the third time: government influence has a negative outcome in most cases. I'm not sure how you got to a different conclusion.
The government should keep social media platforms in check and protect their citizens against censorship (in any form, as long as it is lawful) on large, influential platforms.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
So in fact, you do want the same government to “keep social media in check” that in another story that was on the front page was the government encouraging social media to censor speech? Would you want that same government to force HN to allow political topics? Would it apply to religious organizations that set up a social media platform?
You said yourself it would be a “negative outcome”.
The state pushing this is the same state that tried to force companies not to speak about diversity. They literally named a law “Stop Woke”.
biglearner1day 372 days ago [-]
I think that the last sentence already answered all the questions you just asked.
"The government should keep social media platforms in check and protect their citizens against censorship (in any form, as long as it is lawful) on large, influential platforms."
> Would you want that same government to force HN to allow political topics?
If we were talking politics and Dang would censor anyone because of their ideology, yes, the government should set laws in place against that.
> Would it apply to religious organizations that set up a social media platform?
No.
> You said yourself it would be a “negative outcome”.
Yes, stop misinterpreting it, I had expanded on it in the same sentence.
> The state pushing this is the same state that tried to force companies not to speak about diversity
You mean the same law that "prohibits teaching or business practices that contend members of one ethnic group are inherently racist and should feel guilt for past actions committed by others"? The same law that prevents schools and business from reducing a person to just their race to assign labels of privileges regardless of all the nuances that make up an individual?
Good, stop justifying prejudice.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
So the government should pass laws that tell private companies what they can’t talk about. But the government should also pass laws that force companies to publish every other opinion? Isn’t that the government now controlling free speech?
Isn’t the government in fact pushing a narrative when they don’t allow companies to focus on sexual an racial harassment? Should companies not train interviewers that you shouldn’t discriminate based on someone’s accent or where they went to school?
If I set up a website where I want to talk about Christianity should I not be allowed to ban discussions about Islam or vice versa?
And there are very much “labels” when I as Black person was the dev lead for local company in the South where any time consultants and vendors came in they automatically assumed one of my reports - a white guy - was the manager.
It even happened at a business lunch with my team. The waitress asked the table in general was this one check or separate. I said one check, started pulling out my wallet and she still handed the check to the guy who I assume looked like a manager even though I was the only one reaching for a credit card.
My family is “labeled” all of the time when we “look like we don’t belong” somewhere in our city that was as recently as the mid 80s a “sundown town” and we are still very much the minority (less than 4%).
My 6 foot 5 step son who has lived in the burbs all of his life is very much “labeled” when he walks into a store.
biglearner1day 372 days ago [-]
I find it amusing you continue with the Cathy Newman reenactment.
>So the government should pass laws that tell private companies what they can’t talk about.
Yes, they should not allow private companies to spew and enforce systems of prejudices.
> But the government should also pass laws that force companies to publish every other opinion?
Yes, that's the free speech part, you know.
> Isn’t that the government now controlling free speech?
Not even close.
> Isn’t the government in fact pushing a narrative when they don’t allow companies to focus on sexual an racial harassment?
Except it only happens when it doesn't actually happen, and you look through a lens of prejudices, like the law attempted to prohibit. We have a justice system for when it actually does happen, though.
> Should companies not train interviewers that you shouldn’t discriminate based on someone’s accent or where they went to school?
And that is exactly what the law would prevent; "teaching or business practices that contend members of one ethnic group are inherently racist and should feel guilt for past actions committed by others".
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
So you’re in favor of the government controlling political speech that you don’t agree with? Nowhere in the DI&E training I’ve taken at the country’s second largest employer do they claim one group is inherently prejudice. We are all inherently prejudice based on our own lived experiences.
White people in metro areas are often prejudiced against “rural America”. Lighter skinned Black or often prejudiced against darker skin Black people. There have been reports that Indians are still practicing the caste system in hiring. Second and third generation Americans of the same race talk about people from their own country who are “fresh off the boat”.
But either way, seeing that you don’t see a problem with the government controlling speech that you disagree with is the very reason that the government shouldn’t have that power.
biglearner1day 372 days ago [-]
> So you’re in favor of the government controlling political speech that you don’t agree with?
Where did I say or imply any of that?
>Nowhere in the DI&E training I’ve taken at the country’s second largest employer do they claim one group is inherently prejudice.
Good, so that law you were so much against wouldn't affect you.
> We are all inherently prejudice based on our own lived experiences.
So that is your excuse to justify systematic prejudice? That is the same line of thinking racists use to justify their disgusting behavior.
> White people in metro areas are often prejudiced against “rural America”. Lighter skinned Black or often prejudiced against darker skin Black people. There have been reports that Indians are still practicing the caste system in hiring. Second and third generation Americans of the same race talk about people from their own country who are “fresh off the boat”.
What are you implying? That we shouldn't hire based on merit, but perceived race or prejudice? Your argument is all over the place, make a point.
> But either way, seeing that you don’t see a problem with the government controlling speech that you disagree with is the very reason that the government shouldn’t have that power.
No, that is not what you are seeing, but what you want to see. Feel free to re-read the entire thread because you seem to come to conclusions of your own.
I've repeated countless times that the problem is prejudice, not free speech. You're willingly ignoring what is said and make up conclusions for yourself.
scarface74 372 days ago [-]
DI&E training is not about “hiring based on race”. It’s about just the opposite. Treating people differently based on race because we all have implicit biases. Some of us are just intelligent enough to recognize it in ourselves and not allow it to affect our actions.
But the law is not about hiring. The law is about what companies are allowed to include in their training and the government was trying to decide what could and could not be said by private corporations.
The government wanted to in fact control speech - not hiring decisions.
Are you okay with the government controlling what private companies can say during their training?
chrismcb 373 days ago [-]
This would be the opposite of freedom. The government has no business to be involved in companies
373 days ago [-]
anon291 373 days ago [-]
As much as I dislike facebook. Florida is going about this the wrong way. States should simply ban social media, especially for children. It should simply be illegal or highly restricted.
Sounds harsh, but the world would be a better place. Also, government agencies and political candidates should be banned from interacting on social media that is not federated. That is it.
Unfortunately, politicians don't understand the meaning of federated.
This should be done as an anti-trust action, and facebook should be broken up. Twitter should also be broken up, but it is an utterly useless product, so probably just liquidated.
Social media should be for trashy pursuits, not serious discourse. Those should be done on open fora. Hacker news as well ought to be federated.
duxup 373 days ago [-]
Protection only provided to politicians … I guess some are more equal than others…
Ekaros 373 days ago [-]
Entirely reasonable either they are publishers and thus have free speech and carry full penalties for all the content they allow. Or they are carriers and thus should have no say, but also no risks of content.
ch4s3 373 days ago [-]
That's not how the law is written. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was SPECIFICALLY written to allow providers of "interactive computer services" to moderate 3rd party content posted to their servers. This was to address the issue in the early 90s where online forms didn't moderate at all for fear of taking on liability.
A situation of only draconian moderation or none at all will tend towards only draconian moderation since very few users want a truly unmoderated space like the more obscure chan sites. Its the worst of both worlds.
cjensen 373 days ago [-]
Congress passed a law to specifically ensure they are websites are not responsible for the speech they reproduce. This law is good because it encourages content moderation because there are never consequences for the moderation decisions.
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
> This law is good because it encourages content moderation
This is too direct for me to be putting words in your mouth: do you believe that any and all content moderation is an unambiguous good?
triceratops 373 days ago [-]
> do you believe that any and all content moderation is an unambiguous good?
Yes. Because it's a natural extension of property rights. Do you not believe in property rights?
rufus_foreman 373 days ago [-]
Do you believe the electric company should be able to choose not to provide you with electricity if you express an opinion with which the owners of that company disagree? That would be an example of the owners of the electric company asserting their property rights.
Might there be situations where property rights need to be weighed against other considerations?
triceratops 372 days ago [-]
This debate is pretty old already. The analogue to electric companies is ISPs, not social media companies. Social media companies are analogous to appliance companies. GE or Whirlpool are within their rights to stop selling you fridges because they disagree with you politically.
ISPs aren't treated as common carriers at the moment, and these laws were enacted by the same political party that treats this as a free speech issue. So I have trouble taking seriously any politician who supports such laws. They're hypocrites; pure and simple.
epakai 373 days ago [-]
We have established norms for these situations. Utilities are one special case. Common carriers another.
Social media is neither of these. I don't rely on it to sustain my life, nor access government services.
If we're going to regulate social media it would be more akin to newspapers or broadcasting.
rufus_foreman 373 days ago [-]
>> Social media is neither of these
You are committing the fallacy of begging the question. Whether social media is a common carrier is precisely the matter up for debate.
>> We have established norms for these situations
There is a process by which norms are established and what is going on now is part of that process.
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
I don't believe in natural property rights, because I don't know how to find them in nature. Property rights as assigned by law don't have to be believed in, just observed, because they are enforced.
"Natural extensions" of property rights are religious beliefs. I believe they should be protected, but not indulged.
triceratops 373 days ago [-]
I didn't say anything about "natural" property rights.
Property rights as assigned by law let you decide who to allow or disallow access to your property. If the property is open to the general public, there are some additional rules you have to follow. But you're free to ban activities from your property.
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
If we aren't discussing natural property rights, we aren't discussing anything. Of course there are property laws. They can be whatever we decide they are.
colinmhayes 373 days ago [-]
All rights are legal rights. No one has any rights without a legal system.
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
Content moderation is legal, and companies will do as much or little of it, using whatever parameters necessary, to attract people to their platforms and compete with other platforms.
Very few things are unambiguously good; particularly without specifying a moral or ethical context.
aNoob7000 373 days ago [-]
Content moderation is a balancing act. Companies are going to make mistakes and have to take corrective action.
Do you believe that zero content moderation is good?
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
I take content moderation on a case by case basis. That's like asking me to decide between whether all movies are good or all movies should be banned.
> Companies are going to make mistakes and have to take corrective action.
We should help them by giving them far less latitude.
jcranmer 373 days ago [-]
Note that the First Amendment prohibits the government from being able to mandate any moderation guidelines whatsoever, as moderation is inherently a content-based restriction on speech.
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
My problem is that the government has found a sweet spot where it can regulate speech and surveil without limits through dependent proxies. It has no need to mandate moderation guidelines.
jcranmer 373 days ago [-]
If the government is regulating speech via dependent proxies, that is in violation of the First Amendment. There is actually developed case law as to what constitutes sufficient government coercion that turns a third party into a state actor, and some of things that have been done actually cut close enough to that threshold to be viably argued at trial.
The problem is that no one filing these various cases against social media is properly alleging sufficient facts to suggest government coercion: it's that Twitter (et al.) are state actors because §230, or yappy politician said they should do this [1], or even merely arguing that First Amendment applies to social media absent showing of state actor just because. All of which are stupid arguments so facially wrong that they're not going to survive a motion to dismiss.
[1] While threatening legislation is in fact illegal government coercion, this needs to be understood on the same grounds as true threats: namely, it has to be reasonably believed and understood to be a specific threat, and not hyperbole or puffery or the like. Also, and there are some people who fail to recognize the basic linearity of time, a supposed threat made after the action in question was taken cannot have been a cause of that action.
0x445442 373 days ago [-]
> The problem is that no one filing these various cases against social media is properly alleging sufficient facts to suggest government coercion…
Alex Berenson did.
aw1621107 373 days ago [-]
Hardly. The judge tossed all of Berenson's claims that relate to government coercion [0]. The only claims that survived are those for breach of contract and promissory estoppel, which didn't have to do with alleged government coercion.
> In sum, plaintiff’s breach of contract and promissory estoppel claims survive for now. Plaintiff’s other claims are futile and are DISMISSED WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND.
Twitter reinstated him because he has internal communications showing Twitter colluded with the Biden administration to silence him for publishing information that went against the administration’s narrative.
aw1621107 372 days ago [-]
That doesn't change the analysis with respect to jcranmer's comment, though, since those were not alleged in a court case, let alone a case where government coercion was deemed plausible.
Now, if Berenson sues Twitter again (and/or Biden, presumably) and the judge finds those communications (and other facts) sufficient to establish state action (i.e., the claims survive a motion to dismiss), then that may be sufficient to be a counterexample to the original comment.
cjensen 373 days ago [-]
Unambiguous good? No, it will depend on the quality of the moderation.
But I think it is more important to encourage good moderators to moderate more than it is to punish poor moderation.
8note 373 days ago [-]
Yes. Even if you don't like the results, you can cheaply use another medium, like talking to people in person.
The freedom of association is a valuable one, and people should be allowed to decide who they associate with to talk to
pfisch 373 days ago [-]
How would this even work on Reddit? Currently user moderators control all the user made subreddits.
If Reddit now has legal liability does Reddit need to moderate All subreddits by themselves? That sounds impossible.
smaryjerry 373 days ago [-]
That’s partially true. Reddit assigns moderators to your subreddit as well and if you don’t moderate in a way they like will force you to remove certain moderators or even ban your community.
pfisch 373 days ago [-]
Ok, but if they allowed users to do any moderation at all they would be putting themselves in legal jeopardy. And lets be real, 99% of moderation is done by users.
MertsA 373 days ago [-]
Reddit has always touted free speech, until it hits the news and then suddenly the subreddit they couldn't be bothered to deal with is banned.
Ekaros 373 days ago [-]
Just hire enough people and charge the posters. There are many models that could work.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
Do you want a law telling you what you can publish on your website?
layer8 373 days ago [-]
In the latter case, they might turn into an equivalent of Kiwi Farms. It would certainly be interesting.
> We’ll say it plainly here: there is no legal significance to labeling an online service a “platform” as opposed to a “publisher.” Yes. That’s right. There is no legal significance to labeling an online service a “platform.” Nor does the law treat online services differently based on their ideological “neutrality” or lack thereof.
boardwaalk 373 days ago [-]
It’s a little (a lot) frustrating that people are so sloppy with their thoughts (and by relation speech) on this subject.
It wouldn’t take that long for people to read up on what section 230 actually is before saying “publisher” like that means anything (is related to anything the law talks about).
Laws of course need interpretation, but if people think, “Oh, they’re a ‘publisher’” (whatever that means; they probably couldn’t tell you) “they must be subject to different rules,” they’re frankly just kind of dumb.
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
The people who wrote 230(c)(1) must be really dumb then, since they wasted all of that space to say that websites wouldn't be treated as publishers.
Not sure what you mean. Publishers are held responsible for bad content, and they are not. So we're deciding whether we want to make them publishers, make them common carriers, or keep the status quo.
-----
edit: my guess as to what they are now is online services who republish submitted third-party content or however section 230 defines them.
-----
edit2: An interactive computer service that retransmits material provided by an information content provider.
> 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.
So they are explicitly and definitively not publishers.
ProAm 373 days ago [-]
This would be a terrible precedent. These are private companies, who is the government to tell them how to operate without funding them. If you don't like what you read, or if you read things that are not true that is on you as an individual to make appropriate choices. The government shouldnt meddle with social networks. They are just that, social and voluntary.
danaris 373 days ago [-]
Your conclusion ("this is a terrible precedent") is correct, but the way you get there makes no sense.
The government makes laws about how private companies and citizens can act all the time without funding them. You think the government has to fund every auto maker in order to impose emissions standards on them? Or that every company making communications equipment/chips is funded by the government, so that they can impose regulations on what spectrum they can use?
This is a terrible precedent because there is no sane, logical way to define social networks as common carriers, and because Section 230 was specifically written to allow and encourage content moderation.
klyrs 373 days ago [-]
On the other hand, stripping corporations of their speech, reversing Hobby Lobby and Citizens United, would be great. But that isn't the real objective behind this law.
protomyth 373 days ago [-]
Private companies are regulated all the time. Look up the rules for any utility or communications company. They banned politicians, so that's going to get laws passed.
ProAm 373 days ago [-]
They are given massive subsidies from the government to do so. Social networks have nothing to do with infrastructure where as utilities and communications do.
ClumsyPilot 373 days ago [-]
> Social networks have nothing to do with infrastructure where as utilities and communications do
Social network and communications have nothing to do with each-other? are you reading what you are writing? How is Facebook messenger call different from a phonecall of the 21st century?
triceratops 373 days ago [-]
I only have one or 2 choices of phone carriers with a high cost to switch. I have a multitude of alternatives to FB Messenger (which I don't even use) with very low cost to switch.
Const-me 373 days ago [-]
You can use any phone carrier you want, one of these two real ones, or one of the hundreds of VoIP providers. Regardless on your choice, you can still call the people you want, regardless on their carrier. The only difference is cost per minute, which is typically low cost to switch.
It's impossible to use an alternative messenger to communicate with people who use FB messenger. Unlike e-mail providers or phone operators, these newer web services don't have any interoperability, they're closed systems.
To switch from Facebook, a person gonna need to convince all people they communicate with to switch as well - to the same alternative messenger. That's very high cost to switch, borderline impossible to do for many people.
triceratops 372 days ago [-]
Why? You can't call them on the phone, or text them? Or email them? There's plenty of other open systems around.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
A phone call is enabled by easements on public land. Facebook Messenger is just one of many messaging programs. I bet you right now Google has 5 in the works.
I have at least 7 apps on my phone now that I can use to call someone over an app.
ProAm 373 days ago [-]
Communication is infrastructure. A social network is not. Pretty straight forward.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
Utilities and communication companies are natural monopoles because they require government easements on private property and a license to limited airways
triceratops 373 days ago [-]
So why aren't ISPs regulated like common carriers?
protomyth 373 days ago [-]
Before 2018 they were, and now they are listed as Title I information services. There is a bit of a court fight over the ability of state regulators to impose rules. I would imagine that they could be moved back if they cause trouble for politicians.
triceratops 373 days ago [-]
That's an open admission that none of these laws are about principles or "freedom of speech". They're openly political, and they should be upfront about that.
protomyth 373 days ago [-]
Every law is politically motivated. "Freedom of Speech" is a politically motivated.
>This would be a terrible precedent. These are private companies, who is the government to tell them how to operate without funding them.
The same argument has been made against regulation since regulation existed. Government should exist in large part to reign in the private market when an obvious public good is at stake.
yamtaddle 373 days ago [-]
A corporation is a creation of government. Why shouldn't they be able to regulate them any way they think best? Which isn't necessarily to say this is a good idea, but... of course government should be able to tell companies how to operate.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
So in that case, why not let the government just take over any company it sees fit?
If you’re okay with the government controlling any legal organization do yoh feel the same way about government controlling churches? Advocacy groups?
yamtaddle 373 days ago [-]
> So in that case, why not let the government just take over any company it sees fit?
Well, seizing is rather different than regulating, for one thing, and for another, because most of the time I'd probably think it was a bad idea. I do think it's an option that should be on the table in some circumstances. Just that it's probably wises rarely to use it.
I didn't write that I thought the government ought to interfere with businesses constantly, to extremes, in all sorts of ways. I just think the justification for their ability to do so, if they want, falls out how incorporation works, and what a corporation is.
> If you’re okay with the government controlling any legal organization do yoh feel the same way about government controlling churches? Advocacy groups?
I'd rather they didn't take them over, if that's what your suggesting, but they in fact regulate tons of things about these organizations, including, specifically, speech.
scarface74 373 days ago [-]
I bet Hobby Lobby and the Christian baker would beg to differ…
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
Except in ways that are constitutionally prohibited, right?
yamtaddle 373 days ago [-]
Yeah, sure.
For corporations that aren't closely held, it's not clear that changes much, though.
[EDIT] Changes much legally, I mean. Ethically—well, again, corporations are a creation of of government, so it seems to me that can come with whatever strings attached the government cares to create (so far as what's ethical, if not what's a good idea), and if the folks running corporations don't like it, they can always... stop running corporations. No one's forcing them to run a corporation, and they can all go do whatever they like with full protection of the US Constitution and all that jazz, if they use their own personal resources and don't hide behind corporate liability shields.
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
Surely you don't think it would be legal for Congress to pass a law preventing newspaper publishers (whether persons natural or juridical) from, for example, endorsing presidential candidates?
yamtaddle 373 days ago [-]
> Surely you don't think it would be legal for Congress to pass a law preventing newspaper publishers from, for example, endorsing presidential candidates?
Nah, but I also reckon there's a reason the press is mentioned specifically in that amendment.
NovemberWhiskey 373 days ago [-]
What about a law prohibiting unions from doing so?
yamtaddle 373 days ago [-]
I wouldn't want them to—again, that's separate—but yeah, maybe, since they're also effectively chartered by the government (as they pretty much can't exist in any useful way absent special government support of some kind or another—but then, same goes for corporations).
I mean, they do in fact already dictate a lot about how both unions and corporations can operate, so yeah, prohibiting endorsement of candidates using union resources doesn't seem entirely crazy to me. Though, again, I'd rather they didn't.
eddof13 373 days ago [-]
nah. my bank, electric company, telephone carrier, internet carrier, and social media platforms (effectively the public square) should have no choice but to carry me regardless of my opinions
ejb999 373 days ago [-]
>>These are private companies, who is the government to tell them how to operate without funding them
You are kidding right? You don't think the government already controls almost everything about how companies can operate?
chasd00 373 days ago [-]
social networks straddle the fence. They want to be common carriers when it comes to being responsible for the content published on their platforms and then they want to be publishers when it comes to deciding what content is curated, promoted, and publicized on their platform.
They were allowed to have it both ways because the Internet and especially user generated content was new and no one knew where it would go. Now I think there's been plenty of history and time to see it shake out and they should pick an option; either common carrier or publisher but not both.
/ did i use that semicolon right?
nonethewiser 373 days ago [-]
The government already regulates publishers. When you make decisions about what to feature and what to exclude you are a publisher.
jupp0r 373 days ago [-]
So do I get my daily Wall Street Journal Op-Ed slot now or can they still choose who they let publish on their platform and who not?
sanp 373 days ago [-]
Isn’t it up to Congress to legislate this? Or, is the hope that the current SC will make law?
chrismcb 373 days ago [-]
The supreme court can't make laws.
eddof13 373 days ago [-]
100% agree with florida here, would be huge for me
acomjean 373 days ago [-]
I guess you’d support no more downvoting or flagging post here either.
eddof13 373 days ago [-]
fine with downvoting, just no banning or censoring for unpopular opinions
sixstringtheory 373 days ago [-]
People don't usually get banned for their opinions. They get banned for being jerks. Try enabling showdead. There are some accounts marked as [dead] that I don't get, but the vast, vast majority of flagkilled posts and banned accounts I've seen don't deserve the product of someone else's labor to propagate their speech.
smaryjerry 373 days ago [-]
This is idealistic thinking however there are countless cases where a ban was done by a bad actor or bad algorithm, with the only recourse being a user taking their ban to another platform to complain, and if they gain enough traction on another platform then they get the ban reversed. Unfortunately that only works for large creators while small creators have zero recourse for unjust bans.
ladyattis 372 days ago [-]
So you believe that a website should be regulated in how it manages user access? So if I have a forum for betta fish owners and I don't want spammers or trolls then I must justify my bans to some bureaucrat in DC or the state capital? Seriously, this is why I don't buy there's any good faith behind these laws.
smaryjerry 372 days ago [-]
In a way yes, if that website reaches a certain size, say 100 million users or whatever point makes that service more important to businesses than even the phone company. There is blurring of the line between user and employee when many content creators make their entire living from their posts. They get paid by these companies to run ads on their content, so the comparison to an employee is actually a good one. Even if they weren’t paid all the time they created something of value there, a following, and a malicious ban needs to be protected against. Again, say my company gives advice or the phone, and the phone company’s CEO decides my advice is bad and shuts down my service, that would be wrong. You see companies blame say Facebook for being toxic but in reality it is the people on it they should be blaming. They just don’t like what their own friends, who they decided to follow, have to say. Blaming Facebook for toxicity is like finding a guy sitting in their own house and knocking on their door I hear what they have to say then complaining about what they said, and calling the police to make them shut up. All of these sites have blocking tools, or just don’t follow them.
ladyattis 372 days ago [-]
You have so many assumptions in this comment but I will sum up my response as best as I can.
First, websites are websites. It doesn't matter if it's Facebook or your own personal blog, they're functionally identical in terms of features. They both have a means to communicate with other visitors and they're nominally accessible to the public at large with one being more popular than the other. Meaning that you're saying that if hypothetically a personal blog became popular then the blogger couldn't just delete posts they didn't like even though they're on the hook for hosting content (paying the host provider, laboring to write the content, laboring to moderate the content, and so forth). This seems suspicious to me since it treats being popular with being a monopoly which the two aren't the same. Facebook can ban you but you and your friends can freely setup a VPS with a web forum and keep it private among yourselves to talk and socialize. If say Comcast banned you then I would think you'd have an argument but with a website, it makes no sense in the context that you have an alternative to communicate with users but that you don't have a right to communicate via a specific application/platform.
Second, you're not owed a successful business model. This is important as you talk about folks making a living on websites like Facebook or YouTube (which is more relevant in my opinion). If the case law did bear out the opposite then any act of blocking spamming, scams, or other disruptive economic activity on websites would be illegal but it's not thankfully. I'd rather deal with having several websites not letting me post content because it isn't a good fit them (imagine Free Republic, who's banned me many years ago, letting me spread the good word of PJ Proudhon and other left market anarchists, or me forcing Rebel Media [a conservative website/outlet] to host a transgender vlog). Rather, it means we can self-sort into sites that fit our interests. Granny's knitting blog need not be bothered hosting posts about aquariums. Joe's betta fish web forum need not worry about hosting knitting content. And so on.
Third, no one is calling police on people being racists or fascists in general. This particular scenario is nonsense, so I'm going to just shrug and move on.
Fourth, many of those blocking tools you mention would be illegal under similarly proposed social media laws. All these current attempts to regulate popular websites are just another way to force users to consume content they would otherwise now (ex. trucks with pictures of aborted fetuses being driven around nominally pro-choice areas). The proponents of such regulations are against audiences self-sorting as they can't grow their support base. It's why so many other unrelated, but significant, laws are appearing such as laws forcing teachers to narc on LGBT students. It's meant to break down sites that have appeared to cater to such marginalized groups or are otherwise a big tent platform (inclusive to many but not for anti-social movements such as anti-LGBT). It's a multiprong approach to the demographic changes that has doomed reactionaries for the last three decades.
smaryjerry 371 days ago [-]
I made none of those points so I’m not sure where this is all coming from. I understand you want to take your arguments with others and bring them to me but that’s not at all what I’m saying. It seems you are making assumptions that I have these assumptions.
puffoflogic 373 days ago [-]
Dang explicitly bans people for posting things which are too damaging to left-wing politicians.
Just today he explicitly editorialized a post title (with a comment explaining why) because it exposed some government corruption; I don't even remember what because it was just so unremarkable and ordinary for HN. ETA: Oh lol it was the same subject as this post, but different title. I guess he let this one get away from him.
rufus_foreman 373 days ago [-]
The post title was originally taken from the article's title, "The U.S. Government’s Vast New Privatized Censorship Regime". Dang modified the title to "Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government?", editorializing it and adding the question mark. Dang objected to the words "vast" and "regime" in the title.
The article mentioned that 11 federal agencies were involved in asking social media companies to remove posts. I guess Hacker News needs standards mentioned in the FAQ about how many federal agencies need to be involved in an activity before it can be referred to as "vast".
acomjean 373 days ago [-]
I’m not sure how that would work. Isn’t enough downvotes the same a censoring as the site isn’t letting your opinion be heard. Dang won’t be able to step in and maintain order. Spam couldn’t be disallowed.
pfisch 373 days ago [-]
If you want to post on 4chan, go post on 4chan.
Don't turn the rest of the internet into 4chan so you can force gross ideas and content onto everyone else.
eddof13 373 days ago [-]
we should put speed limiters on cars so they can't go faster than 5 mph and endanger someone else
sixstringtheory 373 days ago [-]
Hyperbole aside, I've ridden in supercars that are equipped with speed limiters in order to be able to drive on public roads legally in the US.
silisili 373 days ago [-]
What law prevents fast cars in the US?
The Tesla roadster claims 250MPH, and there are others street legal up to 300 afaik.
sixstringtheory 372 days ago [-]
I must have misremembered, it looks like the cars came from the factory with speed limiters installed.
Sorry for the mixup but this actually is a good point to consider, this is a platform moderating as it sees fit, according to their observations on when handling becomes less capable at speed.
What Florida wants to do is the equivalent of telling carmakers they cannot put speed limiters on their cars, putting more people in danger. If I want my children to have speed limiters in the cars they drive, well, guess I’d be out of luck!
It goes the other way too: it could also be used to force all carmakers to install speed limiters, and never let people even race at a track. As the original commenter I replied to tried to use as a point against the idea.
The problem with the way they framed it is they tried to make it seem like allowing platforms to moderate as they see fit removes everyone’s choice, which is the opposite of the outcome.
triceratops 373 days ago [-]
Cars run on public roads. On the other hand if you said that only speed-limited cars are allowed on your property, you would be entirely in the right.
pfisch 373 days ago [-]
Are you describing speed limits on roads?
b0sk 373 days ago [-]
Now that we've come to analogies, think that they are traffic lights.
ceejayoz 373 days ago [-]
Why would this be huge for you?
brink 373 days ago [-]
Probably because his ideas and opinions are actively censored. It's no secret that social media has a heavy bias.
fallenasleep 373 days ago [-]
both sides think "social media" is biased against them; I honestly could not guess which way you think the bias goes
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
They're biased against something, because they delete legal content.
nrb 373 days ago [-]
Who cares that it’s legal though? You’re on their property, committed to abiding by their terms of service even.
If you’re hosting a garden party and one of the guests has become disruptive to everyone else, are you not allowed to demand they cease their behavior or leave your property just because their angry ranting is not illegal speech?
You’re totally within your right to say “I’m out, this party sucks anyway, you guys don’t want to have honest debate” but it’s a little absurd to force the property owner to allow you to stick around when you are no longer welcome.
honkler 373 days ago [-]
ladyattis 372 days ago [-]
Actually, Florida doesn't own the property of the private citizens whether its the network fiber, routers, or buildings which contain these items. If you can't justify such a capricious law then maybe your intention is malicious?
epakai 373 days ago [-]
This is a first amendment violation. It should be obvious how the state differs from corporate entities or persons.
cowtools 373 days ago [-]
If you don't like it, just build your own state. smh.
pessimizer 373 days ago [-]
Do you feel the same way about telephones? How about electricity? Is it out of the realm of possibility that a conscientious electrical supplier might not want to power a racist's computer?
nrb 373 days ago [-]
Electricity is analogous to the the road that you traveled on to the way to the party.
> Is it out of the realm of possibility that a conscientious electrical supplier might not want to power a racist's computer?
Isn’t this the case that these same people are making for why ISPs should NOT be neutral, even though they’re much more like electricity and roads than private garden parties?
luckylion 373 days ago [-]
And both Ukraine and Russia say they are being attacked.
I think there is real bias (and in the West it's more biased against conservatives and some minority groups while it's different elsewhere, depends mostly on the dominant ideology) and there's faux discrimination to get victim points to trade in for control.
eddof13 373 days ago [-]
it aligns with my values on free speech and I think social media platforms should be common carriers and be forced to allow all free speech (aside from fire in a crowded theater)
colinmhayes 373 days ago [-]
Hard to believe people who have actually thought about the consequences of demoderation could possibly support it. It would instantly be the end of all forums. Moderation isn't always perfect, but it is infinitely better than a free for all.
cowtools 373 days ago [-]
The alternative to centralized moderation is voluntary peer-to-peer communication, not a firehose.
As a post-social media accelerationalist, the utter chaos that would result in social media platforms' inability to combat spam would devolve into the inability to exist at all and should be welcomed. Social media's negative externality is our individual mental health. One of the greatest things we could do for our mental health would be a complete and utter implosion of uncensorable social media. It cannot come soon enough.
cowtools 373 days ago [-]
I didn't read this whole thing but I agree it would be pretty funny if social media was legally forced to host spam
triceratops 372 days ago [-]
I mostly hate social media. But we'd also lose useful things. Such as the discussion board we're currently on. Or the treasure trove of educational and funny content on YouTube. Watching puppy videos is amazing for my mental health. It would be a shame for it to be drowned in spam.
kelseyfrog 372 days ago [-]
It would honestly be better for me if social media categorically ceased to exist. Before anyone responds with, "You could choose not to participate," what I mean is that if they ceased to exist it would increase the supply of the attention and time of others. When I'm competing in time and attention for others with the likes FB/IG/TT I'm simply at the loosing end. I don't have a team of PhDs whose goal it is to increase people's engagement with me - they do. If I have to compete at all, I'd much rather compete with other people - not against professionals.
b0sk 373 days ago [-]
And getting banned because you repeatedly say that the election is fraud and urge your supporters to storm the capitol (and getting one such person killed) isn't the equivalent of fire in a crowded theater?
Moderation is hard. They get it right 99% of the time.
Jemm 373 days ago [-]
Funny how they care now when they feel oppressed.
newaccount2021 373 days ago [-]
vdnkh 373 days ago [-]
HotGarbage 373 days ago [-]
tinus_hn 373 days ago [-]
Of course the HackerNews hive mind can’t stand for this! But when someone pops up to complain about his essential social network account being banned on some flimsy pretext everyone agrees that that shouldn’t be legally possible!
If you explain "literacy test" voting laws prior to the US Voting Rights Act without that sort of context people imagine well, you send one smart black teacher, they do a few lessons, next year every black person in the town can vote, while presumably many poor white folks can't right?
But that's not how it works, in practice the "test" is whether you're white or not. If you're white you "pass" and if you're black you "don't pass", and if you complain about this loudly enough well, maybe you have an unlucky "accident".
Lynchings are never this circumspect.
Accounts of lynchings also emphasize the treatment of black bodies as evidence of disdain. But even lynchings of white victims often involved mutilation and the taking of "souvenirs", as in the aforementioned lynching. Again, no doubt this was disproportionate, but even the most obvious sorts of discrimination aren't as "black & white" as popular narratives would have you believe. (NB: I'm not challenging the idea or existence of disdain regarding black bodies.)
I think these finer distinctions matter because they're fundamental to understanding the concept of systemic racism--arguably, there really is no other kind but systemic racism. To sell the idea of systemic racism, we tend to shape historical narratives to better fit how people conceive of racism. But taking that license can be counter-productive as it then makes it easier to refute or justify claims of racism, or the very notion of racism, particularly for those so inclined.
Despite the wildly disproportionate population sizes, more than three times the number of Black people were lynched compared to white people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_d...
Now do per-capita murder rates today, I think you'll find the same disparity.
The fact is, lynching of whites and blacks (usually for murder) were inline with "likelihood to commit that crime" based on having virtually identical per-capita murder rates today. Lynchings occurred in the past primarily because the law didn't function effectively.
No one wants vigilante justice (then or now), but we shouldn't be too surprised that communities police themselves when the government can't (or won't).
Meaning the most crazy, shizophrenic person told tale in a comunity becomes the "law" base. Lynchings are a horror.
Jesus Christ I thought this thread was bad but then we get to this post.
It's also true in more significant ways, in that lynchings happened because people felt that crimes (or "crimes") were not being appropriately dealt with.
That is explicitly not what the GGP argued. They were very clear, and it's incredibly disingenuous to suggest otherwise. You can make your own argument but don't misrepresent others'.
> It's also true in more significant ways, in that lynchings happened because people felt that crimes (or "crimes") were not being appropriately dealt with.
"I want to beat someone, hang them from a tree, and then have a picnic around their mutilated body" is not something that needs to be both-sides-ed as someone's personal beliefs on justice.
I don't know if this is the typical HN thing of "I know a few details, I can figure out the rest from first principles" but there's an incredibly large amount of historical evidence of people who very plainly stated their motivations that you need to reckon with before you can make claims like these. Like, it's not reasonable to claim the KKK was primarily an activist group primarily motivated by the need for criminal reform.
Given the way that lynchings seemed to function in some parts of the U.S based on documentary photographs and such that probably some people would like to make illegal, it could just as well be argued that lynchings happened because the country did not have effective mass entertainment.
Except the context is the high number of white lynching's that also occurred.
Actually yes, in many cases. 'White' in these stats often includes Jews, Italians and other groups who also suffered from discrimination based on their ethnicity. The category 'white' has not remained constant over the past 200 years. You can certainly find scholarly treatments of this point if you look on Google scholar.
Have you done so to sources your own statements?
Posting a link rather than quoting the relevant parts make me think that's all you did, once I called you on it. Should you be held to the same high standard?:
> take on the best existing scholarship on the subject and give references to support their arguments
You essentially put the burden on me to figure out how this document supports your argument - that the majority of white lynching (in some unspecified time period) where racially motivated.
I've also found quite a few that argue white lynching were motivated by support for progressive racial causes, but yet to find concrete statistics/evidence supporting that conclusion either.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32948728
[*] As mentioned elsewhere in thread, it's not so simple to say who was or wasn't 'white' at various periods in America's history, and we shouldn't assume that lynchings of non-Black Americans were necessarily not motivated by racism or other neighboring prejudices.
Do you really believe that black and white lynchings were certainly recorded accurately? To say nothing of the proportions as someone said below.
You're providing nothing useful here. Typical softening of racism as many, for whatever reason, like to do. Cut it out.
> is often credited to Francis M. Wilhoit, who died in 2010, it was actually written in 2018 by a different Frank Wilhoit, a composer.[10]
:)
And in this article: https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...
> But in fact it’s the work of another Frank Wilhoit, this one not a professional scholar of American politics but a 63-year-old classical music composer in Ohio, who wrote the adage as part of a longer point in the comments section of the political science blog Crooked Timber [0].
[0]: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...
"Rules for thee, but not for me."
Both the right and left have become supremely prescriptive in their own ways.
I want stronger local government. I have no way of trusting any of these assholes at the federal and state level. Why do they get to set standards for schools, infrastructure funding, or social policy? We have grid lock in part because there are different opinions on what's best.
So be it. We'll all do what we want, and time will prove what works best. Then we can use the federal/state levels for their intended purpose: handling externalities and international affairs.
At least with the Feds they are under a constant microscope. The most heinous corrupt shit in America almost always happens at the local level because they can get away with it
[1] https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/08/30/libertarians-took-c...
Please, no. I get the rationale. It's the local knowledge problem, combined with state/federal being more likely to be populists.
But local government irrecoverably sucks for systemic reasons that I've just started to notice.
With local governance there is no way to resolve dilemma like incentives that cause negative sum decision making, i.e. locally good but globally bad policies. For example, restrictive planning laws. Good locally, terrible globally. So terrible that it is the kind of thing that is a threat to the stability of society.
Another reason is that the competence of local governance is significantly lower than state/federal governance, who have budgets to hire actual intelligent experts. I don't know if you're interacted with local government officials. If you have, you will notice what I'm talking about.
A third reason is that corruption is worse in local governments. It flies under the radar because they're not under the microscope of journalists. There's no good mechanism to decorrupt them.
Good federal governance is the way forward.
Now you can argue that it's not actually half, and so long as it's less than that, a functioning democracy would allow you to steamroll over them. However, once enough people in a democracy consider it illegitimate, it stops functioning really fast.
Also, goodness isn't a binary switch, and goodness needs to be compared with the alternative.
I'd add that reducing local government doesn't mean that federal government has to be large and bloated. I still want a lean federal government.
I can also never pin down exactly what advocates of larger local government actually want. What powers and capabilities, specifically, should be removed from federal and done by local?
https://internationalistcommune.com/social-contract/
It's a nation, and students are nationals. There needs to be some national standards.
Who do they define as a candidate? If I'm running for student council would it apply to me? What requirements are there?
Similarly, who is a "journalist"? Anyone can declare they are one.
Finally, what constitutes post-prioritization? If I search for something, then ideally posts relevant to what I searched for would be prioritized in results, does this count as "shadow banning"? In any list there can only be one element that is first. Are the others "shadow banned"?
Now let's look at this and see if the circumstances justify the government seizing the right of the social media hosting company to determine what content they want to serve on their website.
- Does the company have a natural Monopoly due to rights given to them by the public (such as the right of way for cable/equipment installation enjoyed by other common carriers)? No. These companies enjoy no such special privileges.
- Is there a substantial cost for a competitor to enter the market? No. Software and server infrastructure are cheap compared to costs incurred to existing common carriers.
Then I do not see a justification for the government to rescind the rights of the social network operators in this way.
If social media platforms want that right, like news media platforms, they have to hire real editors and agree to be liable for the information they publish and disseminate. Why should social media platforms get an exception to this but news media platform on print, TV or radio be bound by extra restrictions (liability)?
> Is there a substantial cost for a competitor to enter the market? No. Software and server infrastructure are cheap compared to costs incurred to existing common carriers.
Yes, there is the "network effect" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect ) which is a huge barrier for any new competitor to overcome. One way to remove this barrier and provide a more level playing field would be to create and enforce a standard that would foster connection and communication between all such social network platforms. Do you think the tech companies will allow this?
A political candidate is one who is a member of a political party and is running for a public office or has already been elected to such offices in the past. (Yes, I am discounting independent candidates as they are a minor aberration that, in my opinion, shouldn't be allowed in mature democracies). Whether the democratic system is presidential or parliamentary, political parties are one of the common institutions and base political units that are part of a democratic political system.
> If I'm running for student council would it apply to me?
No, since it is not a public office. This law is targeted to protect the free speech rights and political views of active politicians and elected representatives. For example, Twitter, under pressure from the current right-wing government of India deliberately tried to sabotage the social media outreach of an elected Member of Parliament and an opposition leader:
(Source: India’s Rahul Gandhi Says His Twitter Following Was Squashed by Modi Government - https://www.wsj.com/articles/indian-opposition-figure-rahul-... ).The proposed laws can actually protect tech platforms from this kind of government pressure too, which should be welcomed by us.
> Similarly, who is a "journalist"? Anyone can declare they are one.
Just like shouting "I declare bankruptcy" doesn't activate bankruptcy laws in your favour, "declaring" yourself a journalist doesn't make you a journalist in most countries.
Any one who publishes their work, cites their sources, and signs their (real) name is a journalist.
I don't have the heart to respond to the rest of your objections.
OK, but this can then be misused for other causes — for example, in the UK there is a deposit that general election candidates have to pay, which IIRC was introduced because too many people kept filing to be candidates because that was a way to get out of a legal obligation (draft, I think).
I expect the same here. Is anyone illegible to file for candidacy? Is this exactly the same dividing line you want between the tweeters and the tweet-nots?
(I am amused by the idea of Trump social media site being forced to host the literal Communist Party USA candidates, but that's a different matter).
> Any one who publishes their work, cites their sources, and signs their (real) name is a journalist.
This definition is so broad as to include me. Thanks, I guess, but I don't think I warrant that status.
We definitely have too many candidates. In practice, other filters, rightly or wrongly, cull the herd to only "serious candidates". Basically, ability to raise money and get endorsements. If you squint, they both kinda look like forms of social proof.
The political parties used to be the filter, but now they're impotent. For better or worse.
--
> I don't think I warrant that status.
Maybe not. But name some "journalists" in corporate media who have your credibility and authenticity.
By my definition, you are far more of a journalist than most talking heads and pundits can even claim to be. (Whereas anonymous coward me is not.)
A "professional journalist" also has the resources to do fact checking and corrections (errata).
Most of the news and analysis I consume today comes from podcasts, bloggers, and books.
That's not great.
Using Manufacturing Consent's thesis of media filters, because I don't have another model, it comes down to who is "in charge". Right now, our society's choices for mass news are corporate propaganda and corporate recommenders (algorithmic hate machines). Some people can afford to buy high quality bespoke news. Some are quirky or crazy enough (news junkies) to keep their own ledger (bozo list).
There are some exceptions. HN, metafilter, user groups (aka special interest groups) like some subreddits and ravelry.org, can also provide higher signal to noise over a longer time frame.
--
Thanks for humoring me and reading this far. I write to understand and it helps me to go thru the effort.
No, which is why no one is stopping you from typing in a URL in your browser and visiting a website.
But a computer owner should be able to decide what goes on on their computer (even google or Facebook). The network that connects everyone is what should be regulated and forced to be “free” or “unrestricted”.
How do you feel about the Civil Rights Act?
The discussion would then be about if we legally protect members of tribe with certain gender, skin color, cultural affiliation, etc, why would we not protect a tribe of certain political views, that is an interesting question that I am not sure how to delineate.
Because they're "stopping me" already, as of late.
Prop 209 then Prop 16.
At first you were racist by being racist. Then you were racist for not wanting to repeal anti-racist laws.
Just like how not having blind auditions for orchestras was racist (not hiring enough minorities). And now having blind auditions is racist (not hiring enough minorities).
It does not ban nor prevent the use of the word "gay."
> 3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur [for many students]
So I guess technically you can say the word, as long as you don’t explain what it means?
This is freedom, apparently.
There is no age at which it is inappropriate to listen about these extremely basic facts of the world.
In the broader context this topic would be dull as dishwater and boring as toilet training if a certain type didn't make it interesting if only as a measure of their obsession with sex and other people's mere existence transgressing on useless norms that they somehow assume are vital to our society.
Outside of your fantasies teachers aren't violating your kids boundaries by having a same sex partner or a last name nor yet by telling them some households have two mommies or two daddies. What you are actually concerned about is constant exposure to reality may lead your kid to believe that its normal and acceptable for a man to love another man or a woman another woman which is ok because a substantial minority are gay and it is indeed ok for them to love whom they love.
Instead you'd rather in your words "destroy public schooling" one of the most obvious wins of the modern era to avoid... your kid learning about... adam and steve.
The number of people home schooling went up during the pandemic but it is a single digit percentage not spreading like "wildfire". I expect home schooling to be sufficient for only a minority while a larger portion might well benefit from a partially or wholly online experience.
My kind is American or more broadly Westerner I suppose and I was not aware of any effort to conquer me.
Would it have been inappropriate if she said her and her husband was having a baby? In todays society would it have been in appropriate if she said her and her wife? How do you think these same conservatives would have felt if little Johnny came home and mentioned to their parents that their teacher spoke about her wife?
At least in my country, what the GP is saying is almost the precise opposite of how the pupil-teacher relationship is conceptualized. Indeed, people often bemoan teachers who just think they're providing a service, instead of taking their responsibility as mentors seriously.
Just to be clear - an informed electorate is sort of key for American Democracy so openly arguing against any form of education is a pretty clear argument against some really basic tenants of America.
and by their definition that somehow topics around queer people & gender can be inappropriate; this is not sex education and no, nurses are not handing out hormones to pre-teens.
Many of these laws specifically enable people to sue teachers, governments, officials, women who had an abortion, etc.
That enables conservative & religious fanatics to have the last say and impose their moral worldviews onto the rest of us.
The fact that gay people exist is not 'appropriate' in many of their minds. Which is gross and sad. And therefore these laws give the vocal minority the power to force the rest of us back into the closet.
This isn't remotely true. Your rural local government -
a) generally has to serve the interests of its constituents, ie the fuckup mayor or do nothing member of the county commissioners board will eventually be called out, shamed in public, and lose reelection.
b) unlike Disney, does not move in lock step chasing quarterly profit - which is a very good thing, as it allows for long term cooperative efforts, like bringing a sanitation system to a small town of 800 people.
c) Are by-and-large the most useful people when it comes to pushing back against encroachment by companies who would prefer a company town. Your county commissioner, county seat mayor, etc, almost always have interests that run counter to the largest factory in the area, which is a blessing. That's not to say corruption doesn't happen, but most people are honest, and try to help the folks they represent as best they can.
Disney is far closer to the factories that try to bully, cajole, and coerce their way to a better bottom line, than it is the elected body of a rural area.
You mean the same local government where I grew up that within my still living parents lifetime enforced Jim Crow laws?
Or do you mean the local government where I live now that specifically said that “religious institutions” can be put up in residential areas but are twisting in all sorts of contortions trying to keep a Hindu temple out?
Or could it be the same state governments that are banning abortion left and right even though it goes against the wishes of their constituents?
Maybe it’s the same local government that condones police stopping minorities far more than non minorities because they “look suspicious”?
On the other hand the residence of Orange County Florida are definitely not in favor of Desantis forcing them (soon us) to take over control of Disney.
I know this not just because of what I heard on the news. Orange County will soon be our legal residence and where we spend the winter (the rest of the time traveling). I thought if nothing else, you could count on conservatives to be good for business and lower taxes. The stunt that the Florida governor did is good for nothing but his own ego.
Then Florida tells Disney to watch its step and the left come out in defense of a massive corporation - “why won’t you leave poor Disney Corp alone!!”
Really amazing to see.
In my world, corporations being subject to the government is the Hallmark of progressivism.
But no one's actually paying attention to the actual actions, just their own view of the motivation
https://deadline.com/2022/05/disney-ron-desantis-dont-say-ga...
If you've ever interacted with local municipal governments in the US, you would know that most municipal government employees would love to take responsibility for the zoning, police, fire, and tax collection at Disney. They would squeeze it for all they can - and they probably will. The concerned citizens (and Disney, who is likely funding their legal case) do not want this squeezing to take place.
Make no mistake, that town is only operating at a loss because Disney's accountants are writing its books. They are shifting income to the corporation and losses to the city, so they can take advantage of favorable financing terms available on muni bonds for those losses. If someone adversarial to Disney were to take over the town, the revenue/cost situation would be very different since the two would no longer be working together to shift profits and losses around. We are about to see how different it will be.
There is a huge movement in the metro Atlanta area to either break off from the larger city or to incorporate county areas so they can have more local control. There is no movement to take over larger responsibilities by the taxpayers.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20...
This is a biased source (a little too right-leaning for my taste), but it has a few interesting quotes from public officials:
https://deadline.com/2022/05/disney-ron-desantis-dont-say-ga...
It helps because Disney in Orlando produces something like $20 billion per year, and owns something like $10-100 billion of property and equipment. All of that is now taxable. It's easy to see how this helps a city: A 1% sales tax would net $200 million, and a property tax would also be in the 8 figures.
Police, fire, and other essential services would cost nowhere near this much. Even servicing the debt on $1 billion of bonds would be nowhere near this much.
In terms of local politicians, this helps them because someone with $20 billion in revenue will be happy to pay you a $500k bribe (sorry, donation to your re-election fund) to give them favorable rules.
I don't know much about the Atlanta metro area, but there have been several cases in the past that I have heard of where rich areas try to break away from larger cities. The cities generally don't want this to happen because these districts are profit centers (this is a reverse of the Disney situation, where a potential profit center would be incorporated into a city). Desires for "local control" are usually about money.
This isn’t something I’m just hearing about from the national news. I bought a second home/investment property in Orange County that will become my legal residence once my wife and I start doing the digital nomad thing later this year.
People locally do not want this. No Republican or Democratic governor has ever complained about Disney’s special tax district until DeSantis brought it up specifically because Disney spoke up. DeSantis is not interested in “protecting free speech”.
Does this sound like anything but retribution:
“You’re a corporation based in Burbank, California, and you’re going to martial your economic might to attack the parents of my state? We view that as a provocation, and we’re going to fight back against that,” DeSantis said during an event at a Hialeah Gardens charter school.
The issue is their motive. Motive is critical.
You’ve noted one thing the bill does. It also does several other things that aren’t limited to kindergarten through 2nd grade.
And if that's _all_ it said you'd be exactly right. What's the rest of the text?
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557
> Classroom instruction by school personnel or thirdparties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or [...]
The common interpretation is that telling children that some like boys or girls like girls and some like boys is "instruction on sexual orientation".
[0] https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/...
So technically you can't talk about a man loving a woman or a man loving a man, practically nobody is going to enforce the first case and only the second case will be enforced.
Whenever these bills use squishy language like "age-appropriate" it's to provide an easy out for politicians at the time while causing a chilling effect over all discussion.
A school district may not encourage classroom discussion about [sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels] OR [in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students] .
So no discussion about gender identity or sexual orientation (so don't discuss about families with two mommies) at all in primary grade levels. Then, for all (other) grade levels, no such discussion that is not age-appropriate.
Because that’s what the law was about.
Which is, of course, because there are two sexualities - straight, and political.
> "Clara, my wife, and I went to see bears at Yosemite. It was so exciting! Can you point to Yosemite on a map?"
Everyday situation at any school I ever went to. Schools are not learning factories, they are social places, especially in K-3.
I am not arguing for teaching toddlers about homosexual BDSM culture here. I just think that particular law is overreaching its goals, possibly to stroke the egos of religious zealots.
I've seen tons of recent support for censorship from ideas and speech the (left? I wouldn't consider it actually left) doesn't like. Then you have conservatives moving against these books that promote woke religion and suddenly these same people are very pro free speech.
One could argue that calls for gender-affirming surgeries or treatments are equally, if not, worse. These topics are especially prevalent in the LGBTQ community, as I have found from my experience. Nevertheless, we seem to encourage this kind of behavior whereas we. It is important to be aware of which ideas you are rejecting, especially when the community you seem to be defending is also committing acts of the same caliber.
I’m sure that racist whites thought that MLK was agitating for “equally bad, if not worse” things than Governor Faubus but they were just wrong.
The left has always been pro-censorship: Stalin and Mao, for instance, set up societies with lots of censorship.
The right is also pro-censorship: think Hitler, or any religious conservatives for that matter.
If you're talking about what modern Americans consider "left" and "right", though, I'd agree, but what Americans consider "left" generally isn't very far left, and it depends on who you ask: talk to an internationally-minded American and they'll say the Democratic party is centrist at best, or center-right. Talk to a Trump voter and they'll say that party is "far-left radical communists".
The right is significantly more dangerous now, but I don't see that as a historically universal truth.
Both exist on either end of the ideological spectrum. Right-wing authoritarianism is a thing, and so is left-wing libertarianism.
People on the left need to remember that if they give the government more power to regulate speech online, whether it is to fight disinformation or hate speech or whatever else, the right wing will have the same power the next time they win office. It's so short sighted.
Unless you want our society to vacillate between left-wing censorship and right-wing censorship every time power changes hands, you should oppose giving any more censorship powers to governments.
No one on the left wants the government to do this. What happens is that "many on the left" tend to yell loudly about stuff to the extent that people in power feel they need to moderate their own speech and actions. Virtually no one on the left wants "the government" to do this.
The left, in fact, is extremely dependent on its ability to exercise free speech rights to make this happen. Everyone you want to cite who got "cancelled"? They got cancelled because someone else exercised their first amendment right to a hissy fit. Literally no one is trying to censor you. They're just shouting louder (and, to some extent, better and more convincingly).
But indeed, the count-counter-messaging was too strong and it was shut down, because at the end of the day what amounts a PR organization isn't going to be very useful vs. the ammunition it can provide to people wanting to scream about censorship.
Hilariously that statement is a perfect example of the kind of disinformation and memery techniques that that (aborted) department was trying to refute.
Also none of what you said addresses the the proposed legislation.
This is not true. Net neutrality is about service providers not getting to choose which services you connect with. If your ISP decided you can use Hulu but have to pay $10/mo extra for Netflix, that's a net neutrality issue. It's not about the volume of bytes. It's about who the bytes are coming from and going to, which is a content issue.
My bro is the head tech guy for a cable company. He opposes "net neutrality". For B2B reasons. For him, it's about interconnect fees and fairness. Something like they build the pipes and someone, let's say TikTok, hogs all the bandwidth without paying their fair share.
I have no idea if my bro's narrative makes any sense. My bro also believes The Flintstones is a documentary (creationist). So I usually just smile and nod along when he starts to rant about something.
Whereas my understanding is closer to what you've stated; net neutrality is a B2C policy issue.
Whatever the case, my bro and myself, with our very different understandings and priorities, have no overlap in our positions.
I’m biased in that I work at a company that uses a lot of bandwidth. My opinions are my own.
Companies like TikTok pay their fair share. They pay their provider to take their bytes. Their provider pays one of the “big pipe” companies and passes the bytes along. Then they pass it along and charge your bro’s company. Then your bro’s company passes it along and chargers the consumer. This is oversimplified, but it’s the general flow.
What your bro wants to do is skip the line. It’s not enough to charge consumers, he wants to charge the companies, or the consumers more depending on the company.
It’s like UPS opening up your package, seeing there are Nikes in there and wanting to charge either you or Nike extra. You’re already paying for delivery.
That is the disconnect. In their mind you are 'sharing' with all the other people that bought the same thing, whereas you believe you were the only one that bought what they said they would sell you, like any other purchase works.
I imagine lobbyists buffaloing your average elected representative. It's a compelling story. Even if it's untrue.
Ultimately, we value free speech because it leads to a more fair and just society. It's not a rule that is followed by blind faith. Personally, I think allowing unlimited corporate spending on political speech amplifies the voices of a select few so that others are not heard. Essentially censorship of the masses. I fail to see how that leads to a fair and just society.
Corporations cannot donate to (federal) political campaigns, period. See https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate...
Now, both individuals and corporations can donate to Super PACs an unlimited amount, yes. But corporations have no different limits than individuals. The whole point of so-called Super PACs is they're theoretically "Independent-expenditure-only political committees" and can't coordinate with candidates. Basically the "We have strong views about abortion" Super PAC can collect as much money as they want from anyone they want* and run as many ads as they want telling people which candidates share their view on abortion and which are monsters.
You may view this as vile and bad, and that's fair, but why should a group of people spending their money together (i.e. a corporation or union or whatever) have fewer rights than an individual spending their money alone?
*Foreign nationals maybe not included in this? Not sure.
When you ban or limit groups of people, like corporations or unions or co-ops, from spending on elections, you give more power to those rich individuals, not less.
For example, Disney's CEO is about five million dollars. Disney the corporation has about 13 billion dollars cash-on-hand.
What's an exorbitant amount? Imagine some people, passionate about their particular political issue, pooling their money together to put up billboards, run radio ads, get a few TV spots, have a spread in the newspaper, buy some instagram ads, whatever. That's speech! Of course it is! Having the government restrict is a terrible precedent. The ability to try and influence other people, to convince them that your position or your candidate is the right one, is also a principle of democracy.
> The issue at hand is whether or not you can spend unlimited amounts of money on that speech via a corporation. Individuals cannot spend unlimited money donating to political campaigns, for instance.
I specifically said individual donations to political campaigns were limited. I think you’re arguing a very pedantic point that I didn’t even make rather than talking about whether or not our society would be better off limiting all forms of political spending.
Let’s say I want to personally spent $1 million supporting a candidate I like. But I’m worried their rival will sue me for libel. So I’d like to form a LLC so that I won’t be personally liable in that case. This seems reasonable to allow.
It's all the other bad side, not the same freaking loonies that keep everything status quo and pat each others backs.
Not that you said otherwise, but... I think we should go back to a transactional mix-and-match style of politics, with different coalitions per issue, instead of the "agree with your friend tribe and disagree with your enemy tribe about everything" style that we seem to be locked into these days. There shouldn't be any shame in being part of the same coalition on one issue with people who are reprehensible on other issues. Agreeing with the Florida government about some point of social media regulation doesn't imply I agree with them about anything else.
This immediately puts massive scale social media in a very unique place. By contrast, public school libraries are anything but a monopoly. If they don't offer a book you want, there are countless other ways to get it that are no less convenient, to say nothing of the digital age and searching for 'book i want pdf.' This generalizes to other scenarios as well. At one time it was believed that private businesses out be able to restrict employment or service based on things like the race or religion of their customers/applicants. But as this started to become a more substantial issue in terms of scale, society decided otherwise.
But that's an argument against Facebook in particular, not against social media as a category.
Fundamentally, the problem is that we have allowed the modern "public square" to be in these spaces entirely owned by private companies.
What we really need is an open protocol for a federated social network that works very much like Facebook (so, not something like Mastodon, which is designed to work like Twitter, for instance—though it would probably be worthwhile to do the same with it) and have the government operate some public "reference servers" that anyone can join, while others can also operate servers that can federate with them. That way, you're still able to connect to people even if they're not on your particular server...provided they don't belong to a server that's been blocked from federation due to hate speech or something.
Everyone says they want free speech. But deep down they don't. Some don't want gay marriage written in books, and some don't want anti-vaxxers to post misinformation. Those are 2 sides of the same coin.
Freedom of speech is a critical cornerstone of liberal government. The fact that so many sides want to reduce this right is what is scary.
We have much less freedom than we think, and the freedom we do have we pay a very high price for. I often use the phrase "What price freedom?" in conversations, and unfortunately most don't understand what it means.
1. Your freedom can cause problems to me an to society as a whole
2. We pay much in blood and treasure to maintain our freedom
3. There are unintended consequences and knock-on effects to most all rules regarding freedom.
Or to generalize: "Freedom isn't free"
The same paternalism has justified poisoning one's own people in a "war" against alcohol, dictated who was allowed to have sex with whom in privacy of their own home, and resulted in human experimentation for the supposed betterment of society.
There is a way to get there: it's changing our voting method.
Single-choice, first-past-the-post, winner-take-all voting is effectively guaranteed to result in a two-party system.
There are a number of alternative voting systems, and all of them that I've heard of have flaws, but Ranked Choice Voting is one of the better ones, and seems to be gaining some traction recently in a few places.
If you really want to break our political duopoly, push for Ranked Choice Voting at every level you have influence over. It'll be easier the more local you get, and the more jurisdictions adopt it, the easier it will be to get others to do the same.
We desperately need elections where more than just the two dominant parties can compete without a spoiler effect.
This is happening, just FYI, up in Canada right now - there are four parties worth talking about - Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Bloc Quebecois - the last two are essentially just regional parties which do occasionally win surprise seats but mostly just exist within a localized area. That is enough, in our parliamentary system to force cooperation at a federal level - but without serious action I can't see any ending in sight other than slowly devolving to American politics.
Uhm... you do realize there are plenty of us on the left who adopt exactly those positions?
The reality is, the parties are systemically more interested in self preservation than governing. So neither seem to support serious reform.
Imagine creating a forum and now the Florida government dictates what you can and can't moderate. Disastrous.
The other issue is a bit more strategic. Policy victory brings electoral victory, and you don't get to pick and choose which other policies come along for the ride when someone wins. Nobody agrees with a politician or political party on every issues of course, but it's probably not a good idea to ignore the rest of their views entirely just because they happen to back at least one policy you agree with. At the risk of invoking Goodwin, if you weren't a fan of that Hitler fellow but supported him anyways because you liked road construction, you might have regretted your choice.
Modernity has brought us closer to subjectivism than ever.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
I think the fact that you deliberately expressed what's been a complicated, and almost exclusively school-board driven, phenomenon in such a simple way shows you either haven't read much outside the headlines, or are just hoping to pull people to your side while discouraging them to do any actual research.
Either way, your comment comes across as just as transparently politically motivated as the actions you're criticizing. If you don't like DeSantis and want him voted out, please just say that, it's not necessary to beat around the bush.
No, I want him voted out because of specific actions and I also want every politician inclined to take those specific actions voted out. I don't hate him because he's a Republican, I don't hate him because he's a straight white Christian man, I don't hate him because he's from Florida, I don't hate him. I hate the actions that he's performed (funny thing about that MLK quote; some people just cannot tolerate being judged by the contents of their character).
To pretend that the people behind these "school-board driven" actions are not motivated by, encouraged by, and supportive of DeSantis is completely ludicrous. Anti-LGBT activists are clamoring to join school boards around the country, looking to effect the same policies.
For example?
https://www.wlrn.org/education/2022-06-09/palm-beach-county-...
I don't see how this is any different.
> District staff sent out a list of questions teachers have to answer, like — does a book encourage students to believe that people are racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously? [...] If teachers answer “yes” or “unsure” to any of the questions in the district’s guidance, the book is to be removed from the classroom for further review.
Gee, would ya look at that
Sorry, that one's actually a school board in California, but the same idea applies here, right? The state is to blame?
Relatedly, the vague "don't say gay" law has a significant impact on LGBTQ teachers right to free expression -- straight teachers are totally free to talk about their spouses, for example, but gay teachers are not. Quite reminiscent of the "don't ask don't tell" policy.
[1] https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/a-viral-list-of-b...
[2] https://floridapolitics.com/archives/557111-florida-second-o...
The idea that a teacher wants to talk to their students about their personal lives is utterly foreign to me.
Maybe it's just a sign of times changing?
Edit: this thought came to me in the context of a quote I saw from a teacher upset he couldn't talk about going surfing with his husband.
There was a wide enough income gap in our school that teachers talking about vacations was frowned upon, since you never really knew which kids didn't actually ever get to go on vacations, etc.
My school also had two married teachers who shared a surname. We all knew they were married.
There were also a few teachers (band, orchestra, sports coaches) whose spouses would volunteer at events and travel with them.
Also quite a few teachers wore religious symbols -- cross on a necklace kind of thing. And quite a few of my teachers had pictures of their families on their desks. They didn't make a big deal about it, but evidence was in plain sight.
Now, I was in the high school in the 90s. I'm not sure when you think this changed.
That strikes me as odd. I recall this happening many times. Heck, there were even several pairs of teachers who met at school and got married. One teacher proposed to another teacher during a town parade where many students and teachers were present. It's not like teachers dwelled on personal details in class. It's just that it would be impossible to miss.
Even now, we know very little about the romantic lives of our son's teachers – and I expect our son knows even less than we do. Even when we do know things, it is through gossip among parents, or socialising with teachers – not from teachers telling the children about it in class.
Many teachers also have pictures of their family on their desks, as one might in their office at any other job.
Especially in lower grades, teachers are not robots that exclusively teach content from bell to bell each day.
This is pretty different from coming to school and telling 7yos about the sex party you went to this weekend and which gender you were identifying as when you went. This is the reality some parents are trying to prevent when they say some American teachers are taking their freedom to share their personal lives a bit far.
Let's be real, obviously there's nothing wrong with having a teacher who's LGBT. What people have a problem with are the folks who derive their entire identity out of that, and then greatly encourage the kids they teach to do the same. It's not dissimilar from a teacher being a veteran and insisting on sharing that part of their life with their students, to a point where parents find it crosses boundaries. We actually had a teacher at my high school who used to be a sniper in the Canadian Armed Forces. He was eventually told by the principal no more Afghan war stories, as it was making the students feel uncomfortable hearing that sort of thing from teacher.
The very obvious comparison here is a teacher coming to school and telling their kids, in detail, about their sex life or multiple gender transition surgeries. While they're topics which I'm comfortable with, I can't speak for every parent and I think it's wrong for the state to say "these topics MUST be socially acceptable to you, bigot."
Just teach the class! You don't need to get them excited about queer culture or gun culture or joining the military. Everyone would be better so much better off if teachers could just largely leave their personal lives at home and stick to the syllabus.
When has this ever happened?
> What people have a problem with are the folks who derive their entire identity out of that, and then greatly encourage the kids they teach to do the same.
When has this ever happened?
> The very obvious comparison here is a teacher coming to school and telling their kids, in detail, about their sex life or multiple gender transition surgeries
When has this ever happened?
Straight people also have sex parties. Why are we legislating against LGBT people specifically?
Were you expecting a news article? I'm not the 7yo in the classroom, these are just things I've heard from other parents while I've been spending time in FL. People are earnestly scared about what their kids are being taught in school and I think it's pretty cruel to abuse them instead of taking their concerns seriously.
Any of the examples I used are pretty obviously anecdotal, I'm surprised that wasn't clear to you. Not everything which has ever happened in this world has a Wikipedia article or video to link back to, some things just happen and then people tell others in their community, they don't necessarily run to write a blog post.
If you aren't living in FL right now I'm not sure how nuanced your perspective is going to be on the topic, but your opinions are always welcome, of course.
Yes, actually.
I can scaremonger straight people equally well, but choose not to. LGBT people are just the latest casualty in the nonsense "culture war."
For example, this: https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-777442211945
People saw cat litter on campus, which is commonly used to clean vomit off of floors at school, and fabricated this outrage. Anecdotes are not enough to villainize an entire group of people.
I live in TX, the book-banning capital of the US, so not too far off from FL.
I shared an anecdote from a woman who had absolutely reason to lie, this wasn't a conversation on the internet, this was a handful of us chatting together at the dog park. Did you seriously expect me to do what you just did and smugly tell her that without a source she's just speaking lies? It's a fairly juvenile and reddit move, but again, we're seeing it right now.
If the only way you allow your priors to be updated is by reading news articles, I think you're going to find yourself fairly behind in cultural trends.
Finally, if news articles are truly the only way you can read, please feel free to read about what's happening near my hometown. [1] This should align well with your current assumption that it's not possible for LGBT people to do any wrong, and that any accusation of such is just right-wing 'nonsense'.
[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/9151189/school-board-aware-protes...
That sounds extremely specific. Do you have a source? Because I tend to agree, if somebody told my kid shit like that I'd also want them fired too.
If someone at the dog park told you a story, is your response to ask for a source and dismiss her when she tells you that one very obviously doesn't exist? Seems like a funny way to interact with people.
With cases like that, personal details end up discussed inadvertently because it's impossible to avoid. So-and-so's wife might be a teacher in the same district, or they might show up at school during late work hours and so forth. Same if they're running a club or some extracurricular activity.
I don't think that's especially weird at all.
So they want to shut down any and all speech in that regard but force companies to publish speech that may not fall within their terms of service.
This is small government?
The idea that the law restricts a male teacher from having a family photo or talking to students about what he did with his husband over vacation is completely false. That would be as illegal as preventing a teacher from praying with students in their off-time (after football games), which recently got re-affirmed by the supreme court. It only binds teachers' speech when they are operating in their official capacity as agents of the state.
While you might not agree with this particular restriction, agents of the state generally do not have free speech when they are acting in their official capacity. Teachers, DMV employees, and police officers all have lots of restrictions on their official speech. The ability of the people to restrict the speech of their agents is very important for maintaining a democracy. It keeps religion out of school curricula and it is what makes cops read you your rights when you are arrested.
Also the don't say gay bill is fake news because it doesn't say that.
Germany making pro Nazi rhetoric illegal no matter where is a ban (one I can agree with)
Florida making sure their Public money is not spent on this is not a ban. You can still own and publish these books in Florida. Or have them in a privately owned library or at a private university or school.
Let's stop hyperbolizing. It is actually totally reasonable to censor books in libraries targeted towards children. Not doing so is unreasonable.
That is a ban.
And lending a book is a positive action. If you gave the library your playboy collection should they keep it? Why or why not? Clearly, it is important to have standards for school libraries. There are other books that elementary school libraries should not contain. For example, mein kampf should be maybe available to higher-grade high-schoolers. Certainly not children. My school library growing up would not lend books marked for older grades to younger ones without permission. This is the same thing.
There was so much misframing and misinformation about the bill, continuing to use the Democrat and media made up name and language for the bill shows your slant. Just because many media organizations kept calling it, that doesn't mean anybody here should.
It does not ban nor prevent the use of the word "gay." Asserting so is pushing information that is false, hence misinformation.
Just like the reframing of "woke" and "critical race theory" are misinformation - right? Right?
I have accepted that reframing language is now a legitimate political tool, and from my PoV, the right has been doing it a lot, such as labelling any milquetoast protest by groups nominally on the left an "insurrection" after 1/6. I believe it's a deliberate attack akin to semantic satiation to render a word meaningless, the conservative operative bluntly admitted (on Twitter!) to successful rebranding "woke". That egg will not be unscrambled.
You'll likely make a terrible politician[1] then, because that is a terrible approach in game theory when facing an opponent who defects consistently.
I was being descriptive - not prescriptive. This is now our political reality regardless of how we feel about it: politicians hold entire hearings to get 10-second sound-bites, and political operatives focus-group effective language which tends to be pithy and evocative (which gets called "misinformation" on HN when it's the other side doing it). Talking heads get coached on which phrases to use and the meme (in the original sense) gets spread and repeated by viewers/listeners. Asking people to stop using a specific term which was selected for being catchy is a losing battle - Pandora's box was opened on what are effectively PsyOps by political parties.
1. Jimmy Carter was a terrible politician in the same vein - he gave an honest answer when asked by the press if he had lusted after any woman who's not his wife. He is a good man, but that's not good politics.
The bans in the article you cited are done at the school district level, not the state level. Holding the executive branch of government of Florida responsible for those decisions would be similar to blaming the Biden administration for the actions of Florida's executive branch.
It also appears that the link you cited confuses curriculum selection with book banning. There's a range of what can be called a book ban. For example, when the novel Ulysses was banned, people who sold the book were arrested and imports of the book into the US were seized. That's definitely a book ban. Nothing of the sort is happening in Florida.
There are also cases where local school districts remove titles from school libraries, but those books can still be borrowed from public libraries, sold in book stores, or purchased or read online. If that's a book ban, it's not a book ban in the same sense that the ban of Ulysses was a book ban.
Then there are decisions by local school districts about what material should be used to teach classes in the schools in that district. For me, exercising control over school curriculum is not a book ban and is in no way similar to seizing copies of books and arresting people for selling those books.
1. Are complained about by a parent and
2. Are obscene
Note that 2 is open to interpretation, so this justification has been used to ban classics like beloved and the kite runner, as school librarians can face criminal penalties if they don't do what (a single) parent asks.
The same is true for federal law.
From https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/obscenity:
"Federal law strictly prohibits the distribution of obscene matter to minors. Any transfer or attempt to transfer such material to a minor under the age of 16, including over the Internet, is punishable under federal law."
Is that book banning?
Do you think federal laws against providing pornography to minors should be overturned?
For example, the graphic novel "Gender Queer" has been banned under the broad brush of "pornography" in Florida, when it's educational and certainly not intended to grant anyone sexual satisfaction. The key thing is that cis- and hetero-normative "obscenity", like an anatomy textbook is likely acceptable, but the same images in a book that described queerness would not be.
Specifically, to use your source, none of the books banned in Florida would pass the Miller test as all of them taken as a whole, posses "serious artistic, political, or scientific value", and few are "prurient" in nature, nor do they describe sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way.
To use the examples from above, Kite Runner and Beloved are both critically acclaimed, award-winning novels, to claim they have no artistic merit is...simply wrong.
If it's heteronormative to merely show anatomy (and presumably describe mating) then I don't understand why that's worth calling out. It's no insult to anyone to say that male-female relationships are the most common and the only ones that produce children. We don't need to represent everything as equally likely to say that it's okay.
As for cis, I struggle to see how anatomy would intersect with gender-identity at all. Bodies are male or female, and may be intersex.
> graphic novel "Gender Queer" has been banned under the broad brush of "pornography" in Florida, when it's educational
This feels like a problem of having to find a category. If there was an 'unapproved medical advice' category it would be more descriptive.
As for its educational content, it recommends - not merely discusses but actively recommends - drugs and breast-binding for something that many (most?) parents do not think is a medical condition.
> nor do they describe sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way.
In looking it up and reading it I discovered that the author said "It's been two years since it was published, why are they mad about it now?" and the answer to that is schools. The book wasn't being protested when it was available for sale, and in public libraries, only when it was placed in school libraries.
I think the 'patently offensive' element here is specifically that it's being placed in schools even though many parents don't want it and even explicitly over their objections.
One are transportation companies (including companies that transport electronic communication). The key differentiator between those and social media are that the content is private. So while they have to carry anything, the content of what they are carrying is from one party to another, and the carrier may not even know what it is. So that model shouldn't apply to social media.
The other type are broadcasters, like TV and Radio. But the way those are regulated, they don't have to show anyone's content all the time. They get to choose what content is shown, but also be liable for the content being shown.
But then there are cable companies. Which carry multiple broadcast channels. And they are not liable for the content on the channels they carry, nor do they have to carry all channels. What they do have to do however is set aside some of their capacity for public access. This is how social media should be regulated.
They can choose what channels (broadcasters) they want to carry, and the broadcaster is liable for content. Funny enough, this is already how social media works! The only change would be every social media being forced to add a section that is unmoderated for "public access" in which they would not be liable for the content.
I imagine that would go about as well as you'd expect. It would be filled with child porn, hate messages, and the occasional unpopular political opinion.
Online platforms are both communication platforms for private communication and public broadcast platforms like TV and Radio. Just apply the existing laws and regulations to both these aspects. If they don't want any liability, then they should be treated as common carriers who have to be neutral to the content that flows on their platform - let the content producer be liable. Ofcourse, this means anonymous content cannot be allowed.
Politicians really should not have special exemptions or privileges when it comes to free speech issues. Eg: they have exceptions to use robo-calls, text spam, etc.
Realistically, we probably need to define when an organization is a media influencer vs. a niche communications platform. I do think Facebook/Twitter/Etc. need to be held to a different level of accountability on things like this than say Tomshardware, or HN.
Because political censorship is the worst censorship (you might argue that all censorship is political.) It's like how political prisoners are the easiest sign a place is a dictatorship.
If the powerful are censoring the political process, there are no means to make any of the powerful less powerful. It becomes self-perpetuating.
That’s an easy sign right up until you have to define “political prisoner”. According to some, people convicted of crimes committed during the January 6th insanity are “political prisoners”.
First of all, Citation needed. Second of all, you realize that the people responsible for making prosecutorial decisions regarding Jan 6th crimes are not going to be the same people making those decisions for crimes committed during George Floyd protests and riots, right? You think they’re political prisoners because of perceived inconsistencies among decisions made by the DOJ on one hand and various people in local jurisdictions on the other? Just more of the same insanity that led to Jan 6th.
If so, that is the clearest violation of the 1st amendment. A common misunderstanding is that there is no unfettered right to free speech anywhere, anytime, free of any consequence. The 1st amendment only guarantees that the government shall not impose consequences based on speech alone (with the exception of the crowded movie theater example or incitements to imminent violence). That is very different from a movie theater asking someone to leave because they are talking (which the movie theater is perfectly in their right to deny service to anyone)
AFAIK, all Jan 6 convictions have been for trespass, obstruction of government, assault, etc.. If you know of any examples that do not fall into similar categories, that would be extremely interesting.
I think there is a balance between "social media must not interfere with blatantly false statements from politicians" and "social media can ban their political detractors without consequence". The ideal reality would be the public actually holding politicians responsible for being deceptive or treasonous, but that does not appear to be on the horizon either.
The solution being proposed is to allow administrations to keep pushing narratives that support the regime. You can't consider yourself a defender of the population against politicians while also granting them the power to suppress speech through proxies. When you find yourself favorably referring to mainstream media in the past for their ability to control the speech of elected officials, you're spiraling towards Zimbabwe.
The alternative being suggested here seems to be to allow the regime to compel media outlet to publish their propaganda, because some don't like media outlets being able to choose the views they promote.
Whose fault is it that Truth Social is an abysmal failure?
You can have a free market with monopolies/duopolies.
It amazes me that people on HN of all places is saying that they can’t create anything without a dependency on cloud providers.
I was talking about Apple and Google removing the app from their app stores.
I think they are back now, but it looks like it killed much of its steam.
>According to the former CEO of AWS, only 5% of all IT spend is on any cloud provider. The other 95% self host
This number sounds a bit weird. I assume you are saying cloud costs are only 5% of IT spending which means it includes salaries. If that is the case you can't assume any level of self hosting. Can you provide the source on this or clarify what you are saying?
https://accelerationeconomy.com/cloud/amazon-shocker-ceo-jas...
> With a $51B revenue run rate that’s growing 28% YoY (these were the Q4 2020 numbers we last publicly shared), it’s easy to forget that AWS is still in the very early stages of what’s possible. Less than 5% of the global IT spend is in the cloud at this point
Why does Parlor need to be an app at all? They can just be a website.
You should reread the article. It is saying 5% of it spending is on cloud. That has nothing to do with the percentage of cloud vs self hosting.
It could be 5% of it spending but account for 100% of hosting.
>Why does Parlor need to be an app at all? They can just be a website
Because it makes it easier for people to interact with and can encourage engagement. There is a reason why every social media site has an app.
I know first hand how many large enterprises and state and local government institutions are self hosted.
In context, he is obviously talking about AWS’s growth potential by going after a large untapped market.
As far as “needing an app”. Do you really think the same people who will show up by the thousands to watch Trump and go through the trouble of invading the Capital won’t go out of their way to go to a website and post their opinions?
It wasn't stated in the article that 95% of hosting is self hosted. I would appreciate some article or something that actually makes that claim.
>I watch the ReInvent videos. He is very much talking about growing by going after the other 95%.
I haven't watch those videos, but if it just reiterates the article then it won't prove your point. 5% of costs has nothing to do with market share.
Continuing to say 5% is useless when it almost certainly doesn't mean what you are claiming.
>I know first hand how many large enterprises and state and local government institutions are self hosted
Has nothing to do with the percentage of hosting.
>As far as “needing an app”. Do you really think the same people who will show up by the thousands to watch Trump and go through the trouble of invading the Capital won’t go out of their way to go to a website and post their opinions?
A growing number of people don't even have a computer. They only have a phone. It is difficult to deal with many sites on phones. Not sure how good Parler is, but they are frequently a subpar experience like notifications not even working most of the time.
I'd you want engagement you need an app. Its as simple as that. That is why every social media has its own app instead of directing people to their websites.
Global IT spend is 4.5T.
https://www.serverfarmllc.com/blog/mind-blowing-worldwide-it...
AWS percentage of that spend is infinitesimal.
I am not saying that you need to have an app to succeed, only that succeeding without one will be difficult and lead to a higher likelihood of failing.
If apps are a waste and don't provide any use to people then why do these companies waste their time and money making an app? Why do users often times use the apps?
>Global IT spend is 4.5T.
> AWS percentage of that spend is infinitesimal.
Literally has nothing to do with anything.
I don't think you understand what I am saying despite repeating myself multiple times.
The percentage of spending going to X doesn't let you figure out the market share of X. Even if it could, which it can't, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
I am not even talking about data centers. You brought it up and couldn't even provide the accurate figure for market share. Spending on IT has nothing to do with market share.
The market share for cloud is many times more than 5% or whatever you were claiming.
1. Network effects mean that there's only space for one platform in a particular niche.
2. There are reports (are they reliable?) that people who are more left wing are more habitually online and post much more.
If the above two are true, then left-wing social networks will naturally dominate.
As far as #2, why should tgat be an argument for the government to be involved?
As far as #2 is concerned, well I don't know if it is an argument for the government to become involved, but if something is driving huge divisions in society which are arguably destabilising the country (again, this is arguably wrong) then should the government not intervene? I'm European by the way, so my philosophical priors might be different to those of an American.
It's not as though government doesn't regulated other human behaviours which cause damage if left unregulated. Drink driving, for example.
I’ve made the offer plenty of times, I would gladly overcharge any conservative to lead the creation of a social media site that could stand up to the likely traffic. It would be like the atheist who got rich selling a mobile Bible app.
If I couldn’t lead the charge, I need to give up my $DayJob.
Indeed, prior to the mid-20th century, it was understood that other kinds of expressive speech (pornography, etc.) did not receive as much, if any, protection.
These days, the ”private company so this isn’t 1A” argument oddly reminds me of the omnipresent 200x-era GOP claim that running a federal budget is akin to balancing a household checkbook. Designed to be convincingly simple to state and yet extremely obnoxious to refute to a layperson.
Facebook in particular probably wouldn’t even exist without backing from DARPA, the “defunct” TIA program, and a host of other spooky agencies, corporations, and individuals (Palantir and Thiel for instance).
Skip over 18 years of also-damning stuff to when the public/private mask started to blatantly slip in 2020: Since then, we’ve had multiple leaks, whistleblowers, etc demonstrating overt collaboration between the government and social media companies to censor, ban, and shape narratives.
Not a lawyer, don’t know how you’d frame a 1A lawsuit, but it is absolutely unacceptable that our digital public square is being operated by companies that clearly serve as “Bill of Rights Avoidance” shell corporations for the intelligence agencies and now the Executive Branch writ large.
It’s like everyone forgot about Snowden. This sort of highly suspicious take should be everyone’s default position at this point, particularly in tech.
And no, you absolutely cannot “just build your own Project Lifelog if you don’t like it”.
Do you have any references for further information about how the government supported Facebook? If Facebook received some support from the government, does that make their platform a public square? What would that threshold be?
I'm really suggesting that "open to the public" does not mean "public". Hence, while anyone can sign on to 'Facebook', the nature that they pay for their servers, to develop software, have a business model, etc.. does not make it a public square even if it might feel like that at times (it's a private corporation, which means nobody has a first amendment right to do whatever they want with that software - there actually is no freedom of expression in the US, just freedom from government persecution to express what you want - that is what is written in the constitution)
Most mainstream coverage on domestic intelligence overreach is from the 2005-2012 era; there’s almost a tangible brick wall in the middle of the Obama years where mainstream coverage of this sort of thing switches from being critical-by-default to being just shy of a press release (a good example is the SAFE HOME link in my other comment).
Some of what I mentioned is covered in a very roundabout way in this Vice article [1] while the Palantir/Thiel connections (as well as info on early FB executives being “former” CIA employees/contractors) is on FB’s Wikipedia page. There’s a decent NYT write up from ~2010 on some of the DARPA connections but I’m having a hell of a time finding it right now.
As far as I know, there’s less of a smoking gun so much as there’s a series of very big dots that are hard NOT to connect to the intelligence agencies. You can search up some of the stuff below and draw your own conclusions. Much like with PRISM etc, where security researchers weren’t exactly surprised at the content of the Snowden leaks, the alphabet agency connections to SV are pretty apparent but we’ll never see documented proof without another Ed Snowden.
Eg: DARPA’s Total Information Awareness program was established post-9/11 with the stated goal of creating a total digital panopticon. It was officially canceled due to public outcry. That said, several of its programs have popped back up over the years and many analysts believe it was just broken up into classified chunks - SAFE HOME [2] being one of the more recent and obvious examples of an old TIA project resurfacing.
Lifelog was another TIA project that was essentially “Facebook’s social graph but with satellite tracking and bio surveillance for added creepiness”. It was shutdown one day before Facebook launched [3].
Basically there’s a whole lot of very odd circumstantial evidence (usually the only kind of evidence you can get regarding active intelligence programs) that heavily suggests a link between early FB and DARPA/CIA. It’s very similar to Palantir and suggests that the main outcome of the negative public response to TIA was to push it underground and into “private” hands. It absolutely glows in the dark (RIP Terry) and should be subject to the same rules and Constitutional restrictions as the agencies that aided its birth and certainly still play a huge internal role to this very day.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbqdb8/15-years-ago-the-mili...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/22/white-hou...
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_LifeLog
Conservatives love “the free market” and “small government” when it suits them. These are the same politicians who are opposed to net neutrality. It’s much easier to create an alternative social media platform than create an alternative ISP.
I suspect the 'is it a pipe' or 'is it a bar' question is perhaps easier to look at via 'proof-by-contradiction' when examining other large websites and services that are not so dissimilar.
Another thought, what if a private company wanted to not be a pipe, or what if they actually wanted to be a pipe. Let's say someone had a product launch that was intended and was for all purposes a pipe - though they "couldn't" be because of a user requirement. That seems odd, seems like whether you are a 'pipe' or a 'bar' could be stated in a prospectus and would not need to be a function at all of user count (but instead a function of services provided and how they are provided). In another example, a new phone carrier, just because they are small, would still be a pipe.
IMHO, Facebook is like the bulletin board in a bar. A pipe would likely treat all content equally, Facebook does not do that, and I don't think there is an expectation that they would. If Facebook were a pipe, then there would be no recourse to moderate anything. Ergo it could be chock full of illegal content & porn, and if it were a pipe - nobody could complain to Facebook about the 'bad' stuff that is getting posted. Hence, seemingly they can moderate user-generated content pretty much however they please, it's their bulletin board. Further, if Facebook were a pipe, it could easily get flooded by several hundred/thousand payed trolls to post an overwhelming amount of content that Facebook could do nothing but allow to drown out everything else. Seemingly government telling Facebook they couldn't do (or how to do) moderation could put Facebook out of business (it could just wind up being crap/porn/spam)
I think the bulletin board analogy within a private space is likely a good analogy. The theme of the board is supposed to be posting for your friends by friends. I think it's within Facebooks right to then keep to that theme. The alternative is that they cannot in which case the users could utterly hijack the content within Facebook, and seemingly government regulation at that point would be preventing them from operating how they want (a seemingly very Ayn Rand like situation)
The first amendment by its terms applies to the government. But that doesn’t mean that states can’t provide similar protections from the conduct of private parties.
Why not just keep the government out of regulating private company’s content? Aren’t conservatives all about “small government”?
Honest to goodness, the hyperventilation about how "important" social media is just amazes me.
Many businesses don't have normal websites for better or worse.
Many government agencies announce things through Twitter and Facebook for better or worse (worse in my opinion).
Facebook could get their databases and backups wiped tomorrow and I'm pretty sure nothing would substantively change in my life or my work (and I work in tech). Same goes for Twitter. I might be exposed to less second-hand stupidity on an average day.
I see lots of hand-wringing about them being somehow equivalent to power plants or water districts, but to me it seems like a tortuous justification for "make them act how I want them to act".
> Many government agencies announce things through Twitter and Facebook for better or worse
Twitter seems to be the more common of the two there. They should not do that.
How is any social network today important for daily business? You can live a perfectly normal life after deleting every single one of them, and so many people have done exactly that. Facebook is not equivalent to electricity or running water.
And if the social networks are forced to follow this Florida law, and Mr. A. Troll De Vile was spewing hate at the politicians behind the law...might some social networks feel "deepest frustration" that they were, alas, legally barred from banning Mr. De Vile?
/g/ is far more entertaining than HN.
Someone in Florida will issue a terrorism threat that goes afoul of European laws or something and social media platforms will sooner side with the rest of the world than Florida. And how is Florida going to have any standing to try and sue a company in compliance that does not operate in or offer service to Florida?
It's the same as what's going down in Texas. Never mind that as another commentator mentioned these same state governments are also busy burning books and censoring other individuals so it's not a matter of equal freedom. They want the ability to threaten minorities.
And yet, because this is a party-political issue, you have the Republican Party swearing up and down that ISPs are not (presumably because common-carrier status implies net neutrality and this is unpopular with donors or something?) but that social networks are (because they exhibit "bias").
Unfortunately, my party's base is made up of people who are not super into tech unlike the Democratic party whose base is increasingly rich tech workers.
On the other hand, my fellow Republicans do jobs you may think unimportant,like farming, plumbing, construction, etc.
Perhaps, when you think about it, democrat regulations of these professions are equally ridiculous when you look at it from the perspective of someone in these professions.
Half our political discord would be solved if we just thought of ourselves in the other person's shoes and listened instead of chocking it up to stupidity or malice.
Half of my conservative friends have no idea how the internet works. They don't understand the wires behind it. When you explain to them what's going on, they become more sympathetic to net neutrality. Perhaps try explaining instead of dismissing?
> Perhaps try explaining instead of dismissing?
Is it? There were a few DDoS protection services on the market, but they seemingly all dropped KF, so what then? Is that not analogous to kicked out by every ISP?
>I can't grow my own wheat, build my own car [...] - these all require economies of scale. But they aren't natural monopolies, there's plenty of competition in each space. On the other hand, internet is a natural monopoly because the capital costs are so high and are relatively inelastic with the number of users served.
You probably can grow your own wheat or build your own car. But I like your definition of monopoly.
I would say that more generally, that a monopoly is any business that has insufficient competition to motivate them from abusing their stakeholders (including customers, workers, etc.).
One can still find what happened to them chilling, but that doesn't make CloudFlare a "common carrier."
While it's a somewhat different example and a bit reductive, I find this XKCD[0] to be relevant to the issues with Kiwi Farms.
I run several websites on my physical hardware and through the internet links for which I pay. I don't want (and won't allow) any speech on my private property that I don't wish to host or amplify.
If the government (as Florida's appears to wish to do) tries to tell me what content I must (or must not) publish (assuming it's protected speech under the First Amendment), not only won't I comply, I will scream bloody murder -- as it's a direct violation of the First Amendment -- because the government is involved.
What is it that strips other non-governmental entities of those same rights? Absolutely nothing.
Do I like much of the nastiness, trolling and disinformation that's out there? Nope. Which is another good reason (I abandoned the big "social media" companies nearly a decade ago because I objected to their business models) not to use the big "social media" players.
And whether you agree or disagree with those who do use such platforms, it's their choice to use them or not. Just as it's those (and every) platforms' right to host or not host any particular speech/expression.
I don't understand why technical folks don't understand this. If the government can force you to host speech you don't want to host on your own private property, then property rights are irrelevant.
As for the whole "common carrier" thing in relation to the big "social media" platforms, they don't have exclusive access to rights-of-way (e.g., last mile conduit for wired internet access, ownership of the cell towers, etc.). Setting up your own site is simple and cheap/free.
You have the right to free expression. You do not have a right to an audience.
If the big "social media" platforms (and/or platforms like Cloudflare, AWS, etc.) pull a 1357[0] on you, you do have recourse. Do it yourself. This isn't a complicated thing to understand, IMHO.
I'll say it again because I want to make it clear: I abandoned all the big "Social Media" platforms nearly a decade ago and find their practices and business models to be deeply offensive. What's more, I don't use Cloudflare or AWS or any other similar platforms.
So no, I'm not defending those corporations. At all. Rather, I'm defending the ideals of free expression.
[0] https://xkcd.com/1357/
I think what you would expect in a sane market is that they are forced to negotiate a more expensive deal with the remaining service providers due to the supply/demand imbalance.
As there are so few service providers here, there's only a few levels of risk-tolerance/good-moral-fiber that you can negotiate on. Activists only need to push a site above the highest risk-tolerance level (which is unnaturally low due to this quantization)
The way things are now, I can't ever in good conscious recommend any small or medium sized business own any part of the email infrastructure except the MX record, I've simply seen too many cases of the financial damage caused by not using gmail as a host.
Requiring all hosts to operate on a single, fair, well defined standard would be to the benefit of the people of the United States.
Which is to say, they are not at all.
SV corporations are spineless.
How can social media be a common carrier when it cannot be accessed through a common carrier?
It feels like we're fighting to have our one sentence displayed among the ads, while giving up the ability to create our own webpages and platforms.
Everyone already can host their own websites somewhere, AWS isn't even required.
That doesn't mean regulating them like common carries is good or workable, but we need to start by recognizing that there are first amendment claims on both sides now.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Let's please not make the mistake of saying all issues that relate to freedom of speech are First Amendment issues.
The problem is when government and social media actively collude to side step the government’s responsibility to the first amendment…the government has dragged the social media companies into first amendment territory.
You have two ways of handling this: one…have the government police itself…which it won’t do, because it is already actively trying to find ways around its responsibility to freedom of speech; Or two, start lawsuits that expose the collusion and start making it expensive for social media companies to collude with the government to censor.
The government's responsibility to the First Amendment is "don't make laws that limit freedom of religion, speech or assembly". I don't know what it means for government to collude with a third party to side-step that responsibility.
I look forward to see how cases that go to the Supreme Court are going to be handled. I personally believe that a private business like Facebook has the right to control content on their app/website.
Of course, they're unlikely to behave so blatantly, at least initially. They're more likely to just sort of hint at how anti-trust prosecutions might be started or not depending on whether the platform follows the government's "advice".
I'm somewhat amazed at how poorly the people in favor of this understand what appeal these social networks was to let them grow large in the first place.
Isn't it obvious that it wasn't by letting everyone post anything? We've had that all along. No need to force social networks to do what has already always been an option (go ahead and start that personal blog and post all your thoughts on it).
But of course, that's not what the politicians mean. They use the words "common carrier" to make it sound like they aren't doing what they are actually doing: attempting to force social media companies to be megaphones for the political messages of the politicians.
De facto state media. The very opposite of free speech and the first amendment.
It would be laughable if the Supreme Court was principled.
Second, as some have already said, this is the wrong level of the Internet to manage such a concept of common carrier. Facebook isn't in the business of actually routing data between two points on the internet. Facebook handles internal data on its own internal networks that connect up to the core of the internet which then that core connects to all the edge networks (consumer facing ISPs). This approach is better as it means there's no arbitrary singling out of one provider over another (Comcast vs some random rural co-op) due to political climate. Everyone gets the same process, everyone has the same burden or benefit.
Third, this is all political theater in an age that frankly doesn't really make sense to me. How is this exactly going to get the core voters of Republicans out to the ballot box? I just see this as over the top nonsense.
[1]: https://spec.matrix.org/latest/
[2]: https://gitlab.com/cactus-comments
[3]: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/12/18/introducing-cerulean
Basically, once a social network surpasses say, 20M users, it becomes a defacto political entity, with the power to move elections. Given this immense power, the government should regulate accordingly.
Instead of passing detailed regulations though, I am of the opinion that if a company passes 200B USD in enterprise value, that Congress should get the right to appoint 50% of the board of directors. This way, the company's responsibilities match its defacto political power to sway elections.
Basically, make Facebook into an Amtrak or USPS. If Facebook does not like this idea, then they can split the company into pieces.
Additional benefit: this functions also as anti-trust regulation. Amazon would be subject to this as well.
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I am wrong. You are saying that shareholders ought to hold this immense power that say Facebook has to move elections?
Certainly, if the alternative is that those in government get to wield it instead. I would wager I've considerably more trust in government and politicians than average - I do believe that in the main they're working very hard for what they perceive to be the greater good - but I draw the line at the politicians getting to directly control the political media.
Part of this is that I don't think Facebook's power alone is "immense" - but if you had all of the large media centrally controlled then you'd be getting there.
The very idea completely compromises those "bi-annual elections". How can you effectively challenge the state when all the large media is state-controlled?
I don't think antitrust does much to Twitter. So that reduces its popularity as a solution among politicians. I feel like politicians ceded their power to Twitter. So I write it off as 'you made your bed, now lie in it'.
Then the government can profit as well, like a sovereign wealth fund
If no anti trust, then become a federal agency.
Do you really think that the in power government won’t push corporations to keep them in power?
It amazes me that people want to give the government this much power.
It amazes me that we let social media platforms run freely with whichever narrative, ideology they enforce. Government influence has in most cases a negative outcome, but letting these platforms, especially ones at the scale of Twitter and Facebook, act freely is unwise.
Would you also want the government to control RedState? FoxNews? Truth Socisl?
Like I said; government influence has a negative outcome in most cases, but allowing social media platforms to do as they wish is a recipe for disaster if we're not there already.
> Im sure the religious right would love to control the narrative
I'm sure the ideological left appreciates the social media platform's bias towards their progressive ideology. It's equally wrong if they had a different bias. You, we, need to stop being divisive, it's toxic.
Like I said, for the third time: government influence has a negative outcome in most cases. I'm not sure how you got to a different conclusion.
The government should keep social media platforms in check and protect their citizens against censorship (in any form, as long as it is lawful) on large, influential platforms.
You said yourself it would be a “negative outcome”.
The state pushing this is the same state that tried to force companies not to speak about diversity. They literally named a law “Stop Woke”.
"The government should keep social media platforms in check and protect their citizens against censorship (in any form, as long as it is lawful) on large, influential platforms."
> Would you want that same government to force HN to allow political topics?
If we were talking politics and Dang would censor anyone because of their ideology, yes, the government should set laws in place against that.
> Would it apply to religious organizations that set up a social media platform?
No.
> You said yourself it would be a “negative outcome”.
Yes, stop misinterpreting it, I had expanded on it in the same sentence.
> The state pushing this is the same state that tried to force companies not to speak about diversity
You mean the same law that "prohibits teaching or business practices that contend members of one ethnic group are inherently racist and should feel guilt for past actions committed by others"? The same law that prevents schools and business from reducing a person to just their race to assign labels of privileges regardless of all the nuances that make up an individual?
Good, stop justifying prejudice.
Isn’t the government in fact pushing a narrative when they don’t allow companies to focus on sexual an racial harassment? Should companies not train interviewers that you shouldn’t discriminate based on someone’s accent or where they went to school?
If I set up a website where I want to talk about Christianity should I not be allowed to ban discussions about Islam or vice versa?
And there are very much “labels” when I as Black person was the dev lead for local company in the South where any time consultants and vendors came in they automatically assumed one of my reports - a white guy - was the manager.
It even happened at a business lunch with my team. The waitress asked the table in general was this one check or separate. I said one check, started pulling out my wallet and she still handed the check to the guy who I assume looked like a manager even though I was the only one reaching for a credit card.
My family is “labeled” all of the time when we “look like we don’t belong” somewhere in our city that was as recently as the mid 80s a “sundown town” and we are still very much the minority (less than 4%).
My 6 foot 5 step son who has lived in the burbs all of his life is very much “labeled” when he walks into a store.
>So the government should pass laws that tell private companies what they can’t talk about.
Yes, they should not allow private companies to spew and enforce systems of prejudices.
> But the government should also pass laws that force companies to publish every other opinion?
Yes, that's the free speech part, you know.
> Isn’t that the government now controlling free speech?
Not even close.
> Isn’t the government in fact pushing a narrative when they don’t allow companies to focus on sexual an racial harassment?
Except it only happens when it doesn't actually happen, and you look through a lens of prejudices, like the law attempted to prohibit. We have a justice system for when it actually does happen, though.
> Should companies not train interviewers that you shouldn’t discriminate based on someone’s accent or where they went to school?
And that is exactly what the law would prevent; "teaching or business practices that contend members of one ethnic group are inherently racist and should feel guilt for past actions committed by others".
White people in metro areas are often prejudiced against “rural America”. Lighter skinned Black or often prejudiced against darker skin Black people. There have been reports that Indians are still practicing the caste system in hiring. Second and third generation Americans of the same race talk about people from their own country who are “fresh off the boat”.
But either way, seeing that you don’t see a problem with the government controlling speech that you disagree with is the very reason that the government shouldn’t have that power.
>Nowhere in the DI&E training I’ve taken at the country’s second largest employer do they claim one group is inherently prejudice.
Good, so that law you were so much against wouldn't affect you.
> We are all inherently prejudice based on our own lived experiences.
So that is your excuse to justify systematic prejudice? That is the same line of thinking racists use to justify their disgusting behavior.
> White people in metro areas are often prejudiced against “rural America”. Lighter skinned Black or often prejudiced against darker skin Black people. There have been reports that Indians are still practicing the caste system in hiring. Second and third generation Americans of the same race talk about people from their own country who are “fresh off the boat”.
What are you implying? That we shouldn't hire based on merit, but perceived race or prejudice? Your argument is all over the place, make a point.
> But either way, seeing that you don’t see a problem with the government controlling speech that you disagree with is the very reason that the government shouldn’t have that power.
No, that is not what you are seeing, but what you want to see. Feel free to re-read the entire thread because you seem to come to conclusions of your own.
I've repeated countless times that the problem is prejudice, not free speech. You're willingly ignoring what is said and make up conclusions for yourself.
But the law is not about hiring. The law is about what companies are allowed to include in their training and the government was trying to decide what could and could not be said by private corporations.
The government wanted to in fact control speech - not hiring decisions.
Are you okay with the government controlling what private companies can say during their training?
Sounds harsh, but the world would be a better place. Also, government agencies and political candidates should be banned from interacting on social media that is not federated. That is it.
Unfortunately, politicians don't understand the meaning of federated.
This should be done as an anti-trust action, and facebook should be broken up. Twitter should also be broken up, but it is an utterly useless product, so probably just liquidated.
Social media should be for trashy pursuits, not serious discourse. Those should be done on open fora. Hacker news as well ought to be federated.
A situation of only draconian moderation or none at all will tend towards only draconian moderation since very few users want a truly unmoderated space like the more obscure chan sites. Its the worst of both worlds.
This is too direct for me to be putting words in your mouth: do you believe that any and all content moderation is an unambiguous good?
Yes. Because it's a natural extension of property rights. Do you not believe in property rights?
Might there be situations where property rights need to be weighed against other considerations?
ISPs aren't treated as common carriers at the moment, and these laws were enacted by the same political party that treats this as a free speech issue. So I have trouble taking seriously any politician who supports such laws. They're hypocrites; pure and simple.
Social media is neither of these. I don't rely on it to sustain my life, nor access government services.
If we're going to regulate social media it would be more akin to newspapers or broadcasting.
You are committing the fallacy of begging the question. Whether social media is a common carrier is precisely the matter up for debate.
>> We have established norms for these situations
There is a process by which norms are established and what is going on now is part of that process.
"Natural extensions" of property rights are religious beliefs. I believe they should be protected, but not indulged.
Property rights as assigned by law let you decide who to allow or disallow access to your property. If the property is open to the general public, there are some additional rules you have to follow. But you're free to ban activities from your property.
Very few things are unambiguously good; particularly without specifying a moral or ethical context.
Do you believe that zero content moderation is good?
> Companies are going to make mistakes and have to take corrective action.
We should help them by giving them far less latitude.
The problem is that no one filing these various cases against social media is properly alleging sufficient facts to suggest government coercion: it's that Twitter (et al.) are state actors because §230, or yappy politician said they should do this [1], or even merely arguing that First Amendment applies to social media absent showing of state actor just because. All of which are stupid arguments so facially wrong that they're not going to survive a motion to dismiss.
[1] While threatening legislation is in fact illegal government coercion, this needs to be understood on the same grounds as true threats: namely, it has to be reasonably believed and understood to be a specific threat, and not hyperbole or puffery or the like. Also, and there are some people who fail to recognize the basic linearity of time, a supposed threat made after the action in question was taken cannot have been a cause of that action.
Alex Berenson did.
> In sum, plaintiff’s breach of contract and promissory estoppel claims survive for now. Plaintiff’s other claims are futile and are DISMISSED WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND.
[0]: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.38...
Now, if Berenson sues Twitter again (and/or Biden, presumably) and the judge finds those communications (and other facts) sufficient to establish state action (i.e., the claims survive a motion to dismiss), then that may be sufficient to be a counterexample to the original comment.
But I think it is more important to encourage good moderators to moderate more than it is to punish poor moderation.
The freedom of association is a valuable one, and people should be allowed to decide who they associate with to talk to
If Reddit now has legal liability does Reddit need to moderate All subreddits by themselves? That sounds impossible.
> We’ll say it plainly here: there is no legal significance to labeling an online service a “platform” as opposed to a “publisher.” Yes. That’s right. There is no legal significance to labeling an online service a “platform.” Nor does the law treat online services differently based on their ideological “neutrality” or lack thereof.
It wouldn’t take that long for people to read up on what section 230 actually is before saying “publisher” like that means anything (is related to anything the law talks about).
Laws of course need interpretation, but if people think, “Oh, they’re a ‘publisher’” (whatever that means; they probably couldn’t tell you) “they must be subject to different rules,” they’re frankly just kind of dumb.
-----
edit: my guess as to what they are now is online services who republish submitted third-party content or however section 230 defines them.
-----
edit2: An interactive computer service that retransmits material provided by an information content provider.
> 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.
So they are explicitly and definitively not publishers.
The government makes laws about how private companies and citizens can act all the time without funding them. You think the government has to fund every auto maker in order to impose emissions standards on them? Or that every company making communications equipment/chips is funded by the government, so that they can impose regulations on what spectrum they can use?
This is a terrible precedent because there is no sane, logical way to define social networks as common carriers, and because Section 230 was specifically written to allow and encourage content moderation.
Social network and communications have nothing to do with each-other? are you reading what you are writing? How is Facebook messenger call different from a phonecall of the 21st century?
It's impossible to use an alternative messenger to communicate with people who use FB messenger. Unlike e-mail providers or phone operators, these newer web services don't have any interoperability, they're closed systems.
To switch from Facebook, a person gonna need to convince all people they communicate with to switch as well - to the same alternative messenger. That's very high cost to switch, borderline impossible to do for many people.
I have at least 7 apps on my phone now that I can use to call someone over an app.
The same argument has been made against regulation since regulation existed. Government should exist in large part to reign in the private market when an obvious public good is at stake.
If you’re okay with the government controlling any legal organization do yoh feel the same way about government controlling churches? Advocacy groups?
Well, seizing is rather different than regulating, for one thing, and for another, because most of the time I'd probably think it was a bad idea. I do think it's an option that should be on the table in some circumstances. Just that it's probably wises rarely to use it.
I didn't write that I thought the government ought to interfere with businesses constantly, to extremes, in all sorts of ways. I just think the justification for their ability to do so, if they want, falls out how incorporation works, and what a corporation is.
> If you’re okay with the government controlling any legal organization do yoh feel the same way about government controlling churches? Advocacy groups?
I'd rather they didn't take them over, if that's what your suggesting, but they in fact regulate tons of things about these organizations, including, specifically, speech.
For corporations that aren't closely held, it's not clear that changes much, though.
[EDIT] Changes much legally, I mean. Ethically—well, again, corporations are a creation of of government, so it seems to me that can come with whatever strings attached the government cares to create (so far as what's ethical, if not what's a good idea), and if the folks running corporations don't like it, they can always... stop running corporations. No one's forcing them to run a corporation, and they can all go do whatever they like with full protection of the US Constitution and all that jazz, if they use their own personal resources and don't hide behind corporate liability shields.
Nah, but I also reckon there's a reason the press is mentioned specifically in that amendment.
I mean, they do in fact already dictate a lot about how both unions and corporations can operate, so yeah, prohibiting endorsement of candidates using union resources doesn't seem entirely crazy to me. Though, again, I'd rather they didn't.
You are kidding right? You don't think the government already controls almost everything about how companies can operate?
They were allowed to have it both ways because the Internet and especially user generated content was new and no one knew where it would go. Now I think there's been plenty of history and time to see it shake out and they should pick an option; either common carrier or publisher but not both.
/ did i use that semicolon right?
First, websites are websites. It doesn't matter if it's Facebook or your own personal blog, they're functionally identical in terms of features. They both have a means to communicate with other visitors and they're nominally accessible to the public at large with one being more popular than the other. Meaning that you're saying that if hypothetically a personal blog became popular then the blogger couldn't just delete posts they didn't like even though they're on the hook for hosting content (paying the host provider, laboring to write the content, laboring to moderate the content, and so forth). This seems suspicious to me since it treats being popular with being a monopoly which the two aren't the same. Facebook can ban you but you and your friends can freely setup a VPS with a web forum and keep it private among yourselves to talk and socialize. If say Comcast banned you then I would think you'd have an argument but with a website, it makes no sense in the context that you have an alternative to communicate with users but that you don't have a right to communicate via a specific application/platform.
Second, you're not owed a successful business model. This is important as you talk about folks making a living on websites like Facebook or YouTube (which is more relevant in my opinion). If the case law did bear out the opposite then any act of blocking spamming, scams, or other disruptive economic activity on websites would be illegal but it's not thankfully. I'd rather deal with having several websites not letting me post content because it isn't a good fit them (imagine Free Republic, who's banned me many years ago, letting me spread the good word of PJ Proudhon and other left market anarchists, or me forcing Rebel Media [a conservative website/outlet] to host a transgender vlog). Rather, it means we can self-sort into sites that fit our interests. Granny's knitting blog need not be bothered hosting posts about aquariums. Joe's betta fish web forum need not worry about hosting knitting content. And so on.
Third, no one is calling police on people being racists or fascists in general. This particular scenario is nonsense, so I'm going to just shrug and move on.
Fourth, many of those blocking tools you mention would be illegal under similarly proposed social media laws. All these current attempts to regulate popular websites are just another way to force users to consume content they would otherwise now (ex. trucks with pictures of aborted fetuses being driven around nominally pro-choice areas). The proponents of such regulations are against audiences self-sorting as they can't grow their support base. It's why so many other unrelated, but significant, laws are appearing such as laws forcing teachers to narc on LGBT students. It's meant to break down sites that have appeared to cater to such marginalized groups or are otherwise a big tent platform (inclusive to many but not for anti-social movements such as anti-LGBT). It's a multiprong approach to the demographic changes that has doomed reactionaries for the last three decades.
Just today he explicitly editorialized a post title (with a comment explaining why) because it exposed some government corruption; I don't even remember what because it was just so unremarkable and ordinary for HN. ETA: Oh lol it was the same subject as this post, but different title. I guess he let this one get away from him.
The article mentioned that 11 federal agencies were involved in asking social media companies to remove posts. I guess Hacker News needs standards mentioned in the FAQ about how many federal agencies need to be involved in an activity before it can be referred to as "vast".
Don't turn the rest of the internet into 4chan so you can force gross ideas and content onto everyone else.
The Tesla roadster claims 250MPH, and there are others street legal up to 300 afaik.
Sorry for the mixup but this actually is a good point to consider, this is a platform moderating as it sees fit, according to their observations on when handling becomes less capable at speed.
What Florida wants to do is the equivalent of telling carmakers they cannot put speed limiters on their cars, putting more people in danger. If I want my children to have speed limiters in the cars they drive, well, guess I’d be out of luck!
It goes the other way too: it could also be used to force all carmakers to install speed limiters, and never let people even race at a track. As the original commenter I replied to tried to use as a point against the idea.
The problem with the way they framed it is they tried to make it seem like allowing platforms to moderate as they see fit removes everyone’s choice, which is the opposite of the outcome.
If you’re hosting a garden party and one of the guests has become disruptive to everyone else, are you not allowed to demand they cease their behavior or leave your property just because their angry ranting is not illegal speech?
You’re totally within your right to say “I’m out, this party sucks anyway, you guys don’t want to have honest debate” but it’s a little absurd to force the property owner to allow you to stick around when you are no longer welcome.
> Is it out of the realm of possibility that a conscientious electrical supplier might not want to power a racist's computer?
Isn’t this the case that these same people are making for why ISPs should NOT be neutral, even though they’re much more like electricity and roads than private garden parties?
I think there is real bias (and in the West it's more biased against conservatives and some minority groups while it's different elsewhere, depends mostly on the dominant ideology) and there's faux discrimination to get victim points to trade in for control.
Something like secushare would take the place of forums I assume: https://secushare.org/society
Moderation is hard. They get it right 99% of the time.