totalitarian censorship by crazed lunatics is not that important?
It is important. And when Facebook and Twitter can censor Donald Trump — or anyone else — we’ll worry about them being censors. Until then: Losing both an audience and a spot on private property to which you weren’t entitled isn’t censorship.
At this point, I have to assume Koby is a communist, since his “solutions” to “the 230 problem” all involve the government somehow seizing (or at least heavily controlling) the means of production vis-á-vis social interaction networks.
Many of the suggestions offered involve allowing political speech from all sources.
…by forcing speech such as racial slurs, anti-queer propaganda, and misinformation disguised as “political advocacy” onto platforms that don’t want to host that speech.
The pro 230 people view political censorship as a good thing
Donald Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter, but he still has his own website that literally anyone can look at right now. How did Facebook and Twitter “censor” him again? Keep in mind that losing an audience to which he was never legally entitled is not “censorship”.
it permits speech with which they disagree
Assume I run a Mastodon instance that anyone can join so long as they follow the TOS. For what reason should the government force me to host any kind of speech “with which [I] disagree” that I don’t want on my instance? Keep in mind that “because I said so” and “because neutrality” are not valid answers.
We disagree on what will make things better or worse.
Any approach that lets the goverment undercut, override, and altogether obliterate the property rights of the people who own and operate social interaction networks such as Facebook and Twitter in the name of “viewpoint fairness” or what-th’fuck-ever you wanna call it will always make things worse.
And please don’t make me post the Kavanaugh copypasta again, Koby. Please be better than what you are right now: a troll.
Gilad Edelman is making an argument that can't be argued in good faith.
Criticisms of 230 can be made in good faith. Edelman ignores those kinds of criticism in favor of a “critics good and smart and optimistic, proponents bad and dumb and fatalistic” bad-faith approach that even he has to know won’t hold up under scrutiny.
I hope the paycheck he got was worth selling out his credibility.
[T]he Section 230 critics Edelman spoke to have their views presented without qualification or critique. It's as if Edelman has decided they are correct, and thus he does not need to test their theories, and that we are wrong, so our theories can be blithely dismissed.
In the world Edelman inhabits, he likely refers to that approach as “balanced reporting”.
In the real world, we call that approach “spreading propaganda”.
I've heard that there were more E.T. cartridges than consoles
Yep, Atari expected that game to be a console-seller. That thousands of copies ended up in a landfill alongside broken consoles (among other things) should tell you how well that plan worked.
there was a crash of the video game market back in 1983, which was blamed on a slew of low quality games
While the glut of crapware back in that era was real and was a factor in the Great Crash of ’83, the crash happened for a number of reasons, the first of which listed below is the most prominent:
Atari being greedy fucks that didn’t credit workers, couldn’t compete with superior products on other consoles, and lost shitloads of money on garbage releases such as E.T. and the Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man (and yes, those stories about the landfill are 100% true)
Those other consoles crowding the market, which left those consoles unable to make the same kind of inroads with consumers as Atari (which still enjoyed market dominance) and left retailers unable to move those consoles (and their associated games) once the market tanked
Certain big-name games releasing on numerous systems and looking near-identical on each one — a fact to which an infamous ad featuring Q*bert can attest
The inability of consumers to discern quality products from shit products, which they generally didn’t get until after the NES revitalized the industry in the U.S. and kickstarted the rise of gaming magazines such as Video Games and Computer Entertainment, Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro, and (of course) Nintendo Power
Home computers having both better games than what was available on consoles (including more accurate ports of arcade hits) and productivity programs (e.g., word processors) that weren’t available on consoles
The videogame industry inside of the U.S. suffered the most from the Great Crash. But everywhere else barely noticed, especially since PC games were coming into their own across the world (including the States). Arcades were still doing will enough to stay alive, too. While Nintendo did revitalize the U.S. part of the industry in 1985 with the help of a Robotic Operating Buddy and a plumber stomping on turtles and eating mushrooms, the industry as a whole never stood a chance of completely dying because of the Great Crash.
Free speech has no value if people don't communicate with one another.
Free speech has value so long as one person can speak their mind without government intrustion. But the First Amendment doesn’t give any person the right to speak their mind on property owned by someone else.
the problem is how a select few aggressively try to ensure no one can be your audience
You will find an audience if an audience wants to hear your speech. Whether you gain an audience of one or one million is irrelevant. Whether other people think your speech deserves “cancellation” (read: to be ignored) is irrelevant.
A heckler gagging you or putting earplugs in everyone else's ears has the same outcome when it comes to freedom of speech.
And if Twitter or Facebook could do that, we’d be having that discussion. But they can’t. Because they can’t stop you from going to another social media service or starting your own social media service once they kick you off heirs.
COPYPASTA TIME: The First Amendment protects your rights to speak freely and associate with whomever you want. It doesn’t give you the right to make others listen. It doesn’t give you the right to make others give you access to an audience. And it doesn’t give you the right to make a personal soapbox out of private property you don’t own. Nobody is entitled to a platform or an audience at the expense of someone else.
The Internet is far more than just Facebook, no matter what Trump or his friends think.
Old 45 himself proved it by setting up his own blog, which he was free to do at any point before or after his bans from every social media service worth a good god’s damn. No one can argue — reasonably and factually, anyway — that Facebook stifled his speech. They can only argue that Facebook deprived him of an audience…to which he isn’t legally entitled.
And on top of that, Trump fans leaving Twitter/Facebook for a social media service like Parler or whatever Trump has in store (if anything) would leave them stuck with each other. As much as they may hate admitting it, they want (or maybe need) to stay on Twitter/Facebook — so they can “own the libs” to their faces (so to speak). By staying on a conservative-friendly service where liberals/progressives can’t easily be found, Trump fans would lose the one thing they want the most: confrontation.
Trump had millions upon millions of followers, and Parler was the most popular app prior to them being deplatformed.
So what? Toxic assholes are toxic assholes no matter how large of a group they form.
It's a public platform utility at this point, subject to common carrier rules.
No. No, it is not. Even the Supreme Court said as much — and a Trump appointee wrote that ruling, so don’t complain about “liberal” justices in this regard.
Even if alternatives are possible, such as connecting a generator to an appliance, or a two way radio connection is available, it's still a public network.
No. Not, it is not. Twitter and Facebook are privately owned social interaction networks. Quoting Justice Kavanaugh from Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck: “A private entity … who opens its property for speech by others is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor.”
Yes or no: Does your objectively wrong opinion override a legally binding opinion issued by the Supreme Court of the United States?
You claimed that the “build your own alternative” option is only for rich people. The premise of your argument, then, is “only rich people can afford to make their own website”. I debunked that claim by going after the premise itself.
You have the right to speak your mind, not the right to be heard. Leaving Twitter — one way or another — doesn’t entitle you to keep whatever audience you have on Twitter. Neither does starting your own website. That principle applies to everyone.
And besides: If you run your own website (especially if it’s self-hosted!), you have far more control over your own speech in pretty much every way. That sounds like an advantage over relying on services like Twitter and Facebook.
The situations differ only in terms of audience size. Joe Blow can make a website on NeoCities if he can’t afford to pay for Wordpress hosting or whatever. He isn’t entitled to both a spot on Twitter/Facebook and the potential audience therein. Nobody is.
You shouldn't need to invent a whole new internet just to enjoy the 1st Amendment.
You shouldn’t need to force your speech onto private property you don’t own, either. But you seem think that’s A-OK depending on whose property we’re talking about.
Also: Old 45 didn’t “invent a whole new Internet”. He literally set up a blog on the exact same Internet that houses Twitter, Facebook, and every other social interaction network.
some people are leading the way by sidestepping the censorship of big tech by starting from scratch
You say this like they couldn’t already do that before today. Any asshole with a few bux to spare can buy hosting for a Wordpress blog, and anyone who doesn’t can get hosting on NeoCities or some shit. “Big Tech” can’t censor you unless you believe they’re the only platforms available to everyone (they’re not) and getting kicked off those platforms means you’ve lost your right to speak freely (you haven’t). Hell, Old 45 could’ve held a press conference any time he wanted after he got the boot from Twitter, Facebook, and basically every other platform worth a damn.
it doesn't appear to have any moderation rules, because he's the only one doing the talking
And yet it lists terms of service that look a hell of a lot like the kind of TOS agreement you’d find on a service that moderates a lot of speech.
it's a publication and not a platform. Section 230 is completely unnecessary for his site at the moment.
230 doesn’t make the “publisher/platform” distinction, and it protects his website regardless.
Everyone involved with that “raid”, including the supervising officers and any judge(s) who signed off on it, should all lose their jobs and their pensions.
On the post: The Oversight Board's Decision On Facebook's Trump Ban Is Just Not That Important
It is important. And when Facebook and Twitter can censor Donald Trump — or anyone else — we’ll worry about them being censors. Until then: Losing both an audience and a spot on private property to which you weren’t entitled isn’t censorship.
On the post: Wired's Big 230 Piece Has A Narrative To Tell
We’ve yet to try fascism, but if the Trumpian GOP gets its way… 👀
On the post: Wired's Big 230 Piece Has A Narrative To Tell
At this point, I have to assume Koby is a communist, since his “solutions” to “the 230 problem” all involve the government somehow seizing (or at least heavily controlling) the means of production vis-á-vis social interaction networks.
On the post: Wired's Big 230 Piece Has A Narrative To Tell
…by forcing speech such as racial slurs, anti-queer propaganda, and misinformation disguised as “political advocacy” onto platforms that don’t want to host that speech.
Donald Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter, but he still has his own website that literally anyone can look at right now. How did Facebook and Twitter “censor” him again? Keep in mind that losing an audience to which he was never legally entitled is not “censorship”.
Assume I run a Mastodon instance that anyone can join so long as they follow the TOS. For what reason should the government force me to host any kind of speech “with which [I] disagree” that I don’t want on my instance? Keep in mind that “because I said so” and “because neutrality” are not valid answers.
Any approach that lets the goverment undercut, override, and altogether obliterate the property rights of the people who own and operate social interaction networks such as Facebook and Twitter in the name of “viewpoint fairness” or what-th’fuck-ever you wanna call it will always make things worse.
And please don’t make me post the Kavanaugh copypasta again, Koby. Please be better than what you are right now: a troll.
On the post: Wired's Big 230 Piece Has A Narrative To Tell
Criticisms of 230 can be made in good faith. Edelman ignores those kinds of criticism in favor of a “critics good and smart and optimistic, proponents bad and dumb and fatalistic” bad-faith approach that even he has to know won’t hold up under scrutiny.
I hope the paycheck he got was worth selling out his credibility.
On the post: Wired's Big 230 Piece Has A Narrative To Tell
In the world Edelman inhabits, he likely refers to that approach as “balanced reporting”.
In the real world, we call that approach “spreading propaganda”.
On the post: Fortnite, A Free Game, Made $9 Billion In Two Years
Yep, Atari expected that game to be a console-seller. That thousands of copies ended up in a landfill alongside broken consoles (among other things) should tell you how well that plan worked.
(Full disclosure: I owned a copy of E.T. once.)
On the post: Fortnite, A Free Game, Made $9 Billion In Two Years
While the glut of crapware back in that era was real and was a factor in the Great Crash of ’83, the crash happened for a number of reasons, the first of which listed below is the most prominent:
Atari being greedy fucks that didn’t credit workers, couldn’t compete with superior products on other consoles, and lost shitloads of money on garbage releases such as E.T. and the Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man (and yes, those stories about the landfill are 100% true)
Those other consoles crowding the market, which left those consoles unable to make the same kind of inroads with consumers as Atari (which still enjoyed market dominance) and left retailers unable to move those consoles (and their associated games) once the market tanked
Certain big-name games releasing on numerous systems and looking near-identical on each one — a fact to which an infamous ad featuring Q*bert can attest
The inability of consumers to discern quality products from shit products, which they generally didn’t get until after the NES revitalized the industry in the U.S. and kickstarted the rise of gaming magazines such as Video Games and Computer Entertainment, Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro, and (of course) Nintendo Power
The videogame industry inside of the U.S. suffered the most from the Great Crash. But everywhere else barely noticed, especially since PC games were coming into their own across the world (including the States). Arcades were still doing will enough to stay alive, too. While Nintendo did revitalize the U.S. part of the industry in 1985 with the help of a Robotic Operating Buddy and a plumber stomping on turtles and eating mushrooms, the industry as a whole never stood a chance of completely dying because of the Great Crash.
On the post: Devin Nunes' Favorite Lawyer On The Hook For Over $20k In Sanctions
Actual consequences for bullshit behavior — you gotta love seein’ it.
On the post: Trump Shows Why He Doesn't Need Twitter Or Facebook, As He Launches His Own Twitter-Like Microblog
Free speech has value so long as one person can speak their mind without government intrustion. But the First Amendment doesn’t give any person the right to speak their mind on property owned by someone else.
You will find an audience if an audience wants to hear your speech. Whether you gain an audience of one or one million is irrelevant. Whether other people think your speech deserves “cancellation” (read: to be ignored) is irrelevant.
And if Twitter or Facebook could do that, we’d be having that discussion. But they can’t. Because they can’t stop you from going to another social media service or starting your own social media service once they kick you off heirs.
COPYPASTA TIME: The First Amendment protects your rights to speak freely and associate with whomever you want. It doesn’t give you the right to make others listen. It doesn’t give you the right to make others give you access to an audience. And it doesn’t give you the right to make a personal soapbox out of private property you don’t own. Nobody is entitled to a platform or an audience at the expense of someone else.
On the post: The Oversight Board's Decision On Facebook's Trump Ban Is Just Not That Important
Old 45 himself proved it by setting up his own blog, which he was free to do at any point before or after his bans from every social media service worth a good god’s damn. No one can argue — reasonably and factually, anyway — that Facebook stifled his speech. They can only argue that Facebook deprived him of an audience…to which he isn’t legally entitled.
On the post: Trump Shows Why He Doesn't Need Twitter Or Facebook, As He Launches His Own Twitter-Like Microblog
And on top of that, Trump fans leaving Twitter/Facebook for a social media service like Parler or whatever Trump has in store (if anything) would leave them stuck with each other. As much as they may hate admitting it, they want (or maybe need) to stay on Twitter/Facebook — so they can “own the libs” to their faces (so to speak). By staying on a conservative-friendly service where liberals/progressives can’t easily be found, Trump fans would lose the one thing they want the most: confrontation.
On the post: Trump Shows Why He Doesn't Need Twitter Or Facebook, As He Launches His Own Twitter-Like Microblog
So what? Toxic assholes are toxic assholes no matter how large of a group they form.
No. No, it is not. Even the Supreme Court said as much — and a Trump appointee wrote that ruling, so don’t complain about “liberal” justices in this regard.
No. Not, it is not. Twitter and Facebook are privately owned social interaction networks. Quoting Justice Kavanaugh from Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck: “A private entity … who opens its property for speech by others is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor.”
Yes or no: Does your objectively wrong opinion override a legally binding opinion issued by the Supreme Court of the United States?
On the post: Trump Shows Why He Doesn't Need Twitter Or Facebook, As He Launches His Own Twitter-Like Microblog
For such people, the burden isn’t setting up the site — it’s getting the audience to which they think they’re entitled.
On the post: Trump Shows Why He Doesn't Need Twitter Or Facebook, As He Launches His Own Twitter-Like Microblog
Or, in layman’s terms: they keep running into the “Worst People” Problem.
On the post: Trump Shows Why He Doesn't Need Twitter Or Facebook, As He Launches His Own Twitter-Like Microblog
You claimed that the “build your own alternative” option is only for rich people. The premise of your argument, then, is “only rich people can afford to make their own website”. I debunked that claim by going after the premise itself.
You have the right to speak your mind, not the right to be heard. Leaving Twitter — one way or another — doesn’t entitle you to keep whatever audience you have on Twitter. Neither does starting your own website. That principle applies to everyone.
And besides: If you run your own website (especially if it’s self-hosted!), you have far more control over your own speech in pretty much every way. That sounds like an advantage over relying on services like Twitter and Facebook.
On the post: Trump Shows Why He Doesn't Need Twitter Or Facebook, As He Launches His Own Twitter-Like Microblog
The situations differ only in terms of audience size. Joe Blow can make a website on NeoCities if he can’t afford to pay for Wordpress hosting or whatever. He isn’t entitled to both a spot on Twitter/Facebook and the potential audience therein. Nobody is.
On the post: Trump Shows Why He Doesn't Need Twitter Or Facebook, As He Launches His Own Twitter-Like Microblog
Post a message where he tells his supporters to get the COVID vaccine.
…what? It would make him look worse to his supporters, at least.
On the post: Trump Shows Why He Doesn't Need Twitter Or Facebook, As He Launches His Own Twitter-Like Microblog
You shouldn’t need to force your speech onto private property you don’t own, either. But you seem think that’s A-OK depending on whose property we’re talking about.
Also: Old 45 didn’t “invent a whole new Internet”. He literally set up a blog on the exact same Internet that houses Twitter, Facebook, and every other social interaction network.
You say this like they couldn’t already do that before today. Any asshole with a few bux to spare can buy hosting for a Wordpress blog, and anyone who doesn’t can get hosting on NeoCities or some shit. “Big Tech” can’t censor you unless you believe they’re the only platforms available to everyone (they’re not) and getting kicked off those platforms means you’ve lost your right to speak freely (you haven’t). Hell, Old 45 could’ve held a press conference any time he wanted after he got the boot from Twitter, Facebook, and basically every other platform worth a damn.
And yet it lists terms of service that look a hell of a lot like the kind of TOS agreement you’d find on a service that moderates a lot of speech.
230 doesn’t make the “publisher/platform” distinction, and it protects his website regardless.
On the post: Lawsuit: Cops Trashed An Attorney's Home In Retaliation For Successfully Defending A Suspect Against Murder Charges
Everyone involved with that “raid”, including the supervising officers and any judge(s) who signed off on it, should all lose their jobs and their pensions.
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